Moving to Middle School
What Other Kids Are Reading&
Moving to Middle School
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Is it good to be in the middle? Sometimes, no, like when you're in the middle seat on a long car ride. But sometimes, yes, like when you're in the middle of a great movie. What will happen next? Middle school is a little bit like that.
Middle school is called middle school because it's in the middle of your school years. Elementary school is behind you. High school and possibly college still await you. Middle school often includes sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, but you might go to middle school earlier or later, depending on how it's done in your area.
For a kid, going to middle school is often a big change:
First, it often means moving to a new building, which takes some time to adjust to.
Second, it may mean taking a different bus, with different students.
Third, the friends you made in elementary school may end up going to different middle schools.
All that can make you feel a bit
on the first day of school.
Other things that probably will be different are the
and the work. Have you heard rumors that middle school teachers are really mean and the
is really, really hard? Oh, dear. We've heard those, too, but they're generally not true. Yes, you'll like some teachers better than others, but middle schools are not special breeding grounds for mean teachers!Learning New Stuff
Your homework & and the work you do in class & likely will get more challenging, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. You're growing up and you get to build on all that learning you already did in elementary school. You'll also probably be learning some new and different stuff in middle school & like foreign languages, more advanced courses in computer technology, music and art, health, and life skills, such as .
On top of that, middle school will probably offer a variety of new teams, clubs, and activities you can join. Maybe you love lacrosse, ceramics, or jazz music. You might find opportunities to do all three at middle school.
Still worried about middle school? Let's talk about how to make the transition and not get too freaked out!
Visit more than once. Most middle schools have orientation day for students who will be attending in the fall. Orientation is a day when you tour the school and get a little information about what it will be like to go there. Another great way to get oriented is to attend a concert or sporting event at your new school. And talk to friends who already go there. Ask them about any problems they had and ask if they could help you if you need it when you get there. It's cool to have an older kid as a friend at your new school!
It also might help if your mom or dad drove you to the school in the summertime. You might see sports teams practicing outside and just get a flavor of the place. It's also good to get an idea of where it is in your area. Is it over near the mall or on the other side of town?
Prepare for Day 1. Read any materials you get at orientation or that arrive by mail in the summer. Are there books you need to read or supplies you have to buy? You'll also want to figure out what time school starts and what time the bus will pick you up, if you take one. Then you can decide what time you'll need to wake up. You also might want to find out when your
is. If it's later than usual, you might want to pack a snack. Also in advance, think about what you'll wear. Choose something that you like and feel comfortable in. If you'll be wearing a uniform, try it on to see that all the pieces fit and that they feel good.
Get to bed on time the night before! Try to get a good night's
& even if you're so excited you don't think you can sleep. Before bed, lay out all your stuff so you don't forget anything. Set your alarm, but tell your mom or dad when you need to get up in case you sleep right through it!
On the big day, eat breakfast and be brave.
might seem skippable if you're in a major hurry, but don't cut it out. You'll feel terrible by mid-morning, just when you need your energy and brain power to navigate your new school.
On your way out the door, take everything you need and try to remember that this is a big adventure. You might get lost in the halls. Oh well, it's your first day! Check in with friends you know and try to be brave and say "hi" to other new kids. Don't know the kid with the locker next to yours? Say "hello." You'll be seeing a lot of each other this year!
In class, listen to what the teacher says and take notes because it's hard to remember everything. Try to write down the important stuff & like your locker combination and your homeroom number. Then you can look it over when you get home and be prepared for Day 2.
On Day 2, repeat. On the second day, do everything you did on Day 1. Hopefully, things are starting to go a little more smoothly. Keep referring to your notes. It might help to look over your class schedule at home so you start to memorize that math follows English and science follows gym, but only on Tuesdays!
After 1 week, pat yourself on the back. When you've been at your school for a whole week, it's time to give yourself a round of applause. You've probably absorbed a ton of new information & all in a short time. You probably know your locker combination, where your assigned seat is in all your classes, where the bathrooms are, and how to get to the cafeteria. Do you still get lost on the way to gym? If so, find a buddy who goes to gym at the same time and walk together.Solving Problems Beyond Week 1
If you find you're having trouble with schoolwork or friends, don't panic but do get help. Just like in elementary school, ask the teacher for extra help after class if you don't understand something you're learning. You also might have study halls in middle school & these free periods are great for talking to a teacher or getting a jump on your homework.
Also talk to your mom or dad if you're having trouble with your classes. It could be that you're just a little rusty after that long summer, but if your problems don't go away, you'll want to talk to the teacher and maybe a .
When it comes to friends, the switch to a new school can leave you feeling a little dizzy. What if your best friend isn't in any of your classes and you never see him or her? What if none of your friends even goes to your school? Middle school is a good time to make new connections and new friends.
Sometimes, it's easy to make a new friend. You might meet the first day and then hang out all year long. But it can also go more slowly, especially if it seems like a lot of kids are already hanging out together in groups that don't include you. Let someone know how it's going for you. Talk to your mom, dad, or a school counselor if you're feeling lonely and it's not getting any better.
You might wonder what you can do to feel less lonely and make friends. Here's something: Try joining a club, sport, or activity. It's a great way to get to know kids you don't know yet. Being in these groups also can help you feel more at home at your school. By next year, you'll be that cool older kid who's helping out the new kid. If he's lost on the way to the gym, please show him the way!
Reviewed by:
Date reviewed: January 2012 •
Note: All information on KidsHealth® is for educational purposes only. For specific medical advice, diagnoses, and treatment, consult your doctor.© 1995- The Nemours Foundation. All rights reserved."Like a ten-speed bike, most of us have gears we do not use." -- Charles Schulz
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Puerto Rican proverb
"Beware of a wolf in sheep's clothing." -- Aesop
"Make friends before you need them." -- Unknown
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." -- Chinese proverb
"The way to be nothing is to do nothing." -- Nathaniel Howe
"If you were another person, would you like to be a friend of yours?" -- Unknown
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"Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired." -- Mark Twain
"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it." -- Henry Ford
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"You can encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated." -- Maya Angelou
"We haven't failed. We now know a thousand things that won't work, so we are much closer to finding what will." -- Thomas Edison
"We must be authors of the history of our age." -- Madeleine Albright
"You can't unscramble eggs." -- John Pierpont Morgan
"A book is like a garden carried in a pocket." -- Chinese proverb
"No individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving behind him distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it." -- George Washington Carver
"We may all have come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now." -- Martin Luther King Jr.
"Choose your socks by their color and your friends by their character. Choosing your socks by their character makes no sense. Choosing your friends by their color is unthinkable."-- Unknown
"Genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration." -- Thomas Edison
"Each life is like a letter of the alphabet. Alone it can be meaningless. Or it can be part of a great meaning." -- Unknown
"Your children need your presence more than your presents." -- Jesse Jackson
"A friend who lies for you may also lie against you." -- Unknown
"The price of your hat isn't the measure of your brain." -- African American Saying
"The wastebasket is a writer's best friend." -- Isaac Bashevis Singer
"We are wiser than we know." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Friendship with oneself is all important because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world." -- Eleanor Roosevelt
"People don't get along because they fear each other. People fear each other because they don't know each other. They don't know each other because they have not properly communicated with each other." -- Martin Luther King Jr.
"You have brains in your head.You have feet in your shoes.You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You're on your own.And you know what you know.And you are the guyWho'll decide where you go." -- Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!
"Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the used key is always bright." -- Benjamin Franklin
"He that flings dirt at another dirties himself most." -- Thomas Fuller
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"The trouble with life isn't that there is no answer, it's that there are so many answers." -- Ruth Benedict, anthropologist
"The sleeping fox catches no poultry." -- Benjamin Franklin
"A failure is a man who has blundered but is not able to cash in the experience." -- Elbert Hubbard
"One machine can do the work of 50 ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." -- Elbert Hubbard
"Statistically 100 percent of the shots you don't take don't go in." -- Wayne Gretsky
"If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest." -- Benjamin Franklin
"Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.匼" -- Samuel Butler
"You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do." -- Henry Ford
"This thing we call 'failure' is not the falling down but the staying down." -- Mary Pickford
"If you're going to do good work, the work has to scare you." -- Andre Previn
"We must be careful what we say. No bird resumes its egg." -- Emily Dickinson
"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards." -- Vernon Saunders Law
"For all of us today, the battle is in our hands. The road ahead is not altogether a smooth one. There are no broad highways to lead us easily and inevitably to quick solutions. We must keep going." -- Martin Luther King Jr.
"Life is like a trumpet. If you don't put anything into it, you don't get anything out of it." -- W.C. Handy
"To err is human, to forgive is divine." -- Alexander Pope
"A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked." -- Bernard Meltzer
"Truth may be stretched but cannot be broken. It always gets above falsehood as oil does above water." -- Miguel de Cervantes
"Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope and, crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." -- Robert F. Kennedy
"My opinion is that you never find happiness until you stop looking for it." -- Chuang-tzu
"Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, the other gold." -- Anonymous
"Not failure, but low aim, is crime." -- James Russell Lowell
"Wherever you are, it is your own friends who make your world." -- William James
"The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook." -- William James
"The main thing is to care. Care very hard, even if it is only a game you are playing." -- Billie Jean King
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." -- Unknown
"Life is too short to be small." -- Benjamin Disraeli
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"The older I get, the greater power I seem to ha I am like a snowball -- the further I am rolled the more I gain." -- Susan B. Anthony
"The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship." -- William Blake
"[I]t is a dangerous thing to ask why someone else has been given more. It is humbling -- and indeed healthy -- to ask why you have been given so much." -- Condoleezza Rice
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"What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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"Time heals all wounds." -- Geoffrey Chaucer
"Two heads are better than one." -- John Heywood
"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. When I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years." -- Mark Twain
"The Earth is given as a common for men to labor and live in." (Note: For students to understand this one, teachers might need to explain to students a little about the history of town commons, common lands set aside for the common use and enjoyment of all.) -- Thomas Jefferson
"Happiness isn't some it's something you remember." -- Oscar Levant
"To hate fatigues." -- Jean Rostand
"Bewar a small leak will sink a great ship." -- Benjamin Franklin
"The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead." -- Aristotle
"There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering." -- Theodore Roosevelt
"Our real enemies are the people who make us feel so good that we are slowly, but inexorably, pulled down into the quicksand of smugness and self-satisfaction." -- Sydney Harris
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." -- Henry David Thoreau
"My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate -- that's my philosophy." -- Thornton Wilder
"The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything." -- Edward Phelps
"One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning." -- James Russell Lowell
"The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands." -- Benjamin Franklin
"Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure." -- Thomas A. Edison
"Avoid flatterers, for they are thieves in disguise." -- William Penn
"Fortunes made in no time are like sh it's ten to one if they hang long together." -- Douglas Jerrold
"Friendship is one mind in two bodies." -- Mencius
"Genius is an African who dreams up snow." -- Vladimir Nabokov
"Even doubtful accusations leave a stain behind them." -- Thomas Fuller
"While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it." -- Samuel Johnson
"Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do." -- Voltaire
"The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken." -- Samuel Johnson
"No man is hurt but by himself." -- Diogenes
"Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead." -- Scottish proverb
"The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of the wise man is in his heart." -- Benjamin Franklin
"Nothing makes one feel so strong as a call for help." -- George MacDonald
"It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them." -- Mark Twain
"A misty morning does not signify a cloudy day." -- ancient proverb
"Some of us are like wheelbarrows -- only useful when pushed and very easily upset." -- Jack Herbert
"Two things are infinite: the universe and I'm not sure about the universe." -- Albert Einstein
"Good humor is one of the best articles of dress one can wear in society." -- William Makepeace Thackeray
"Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done." -- Louis D. Brandeis
"As long as I can conceive something better than myself, I cannot be easy unless I am striving to bring it into existence or clearing the way for it." -- George Bernard Shaw
"While the mind is in doubt, it is driven this way and that by a slight impulse." -- Terence
"It is better to wear out than to rust out." -- Richard Cumberland
"When I'm not thanked at all, I'm thanked enough." -- Henry Fielding
"To inherit property is not to be born -- it is to be still-born, rather. -- Henry David Thoreau
"The injury we do and the one we suffer are not weighed in the same scale." -- Aesop
"The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary." -- May Smith
"Perfection never exists in reality, but only in our dreams." -- Dr. Rudolf Dreikurs
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