Maniacs in the Middle - A Teaching Blog by Josie Bensko

Josie November 25, 2020

My Teacher & Tech Must-Haves!

Welcome back to Josie’s Favorite Things of 2020! Tonight I am focusing on my teacher and tech favorites. Remember, these are all items I have personally and LOVE. I chose items that I ACTUALLY use as a teacher. These items are for the teachers in your lives or yourself if you are a teacher! This is not a post for parents on what to give their child’s teacher for Christmas!! (But if you really want to know what your child’s teacher wants this year: it’s a hand written note, or gift cards & wine.) 🙂 These are items that I…

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Josie November 24, 2020

Josie’s Favorite Things

Hey there, friend!! Welcome to my first ever “Josie’s Favorite Things!” I remember my mom waiting for the Oprah’s Favorite Things episode every year when I was younger. I love all the Gift Guides I have been seeing, but I wanted to put my own personal twist on them. Rather than putting together a bunch of popular items that I may have never even tried, I decided to put together a list of my tried and true products. These are items that you see me wearing all the time, items I repurchase, items I have used for years, and honestly…

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Josie September 23, 2020

Outdoor Home Office with Amazon Home

*This post is sponsored by Amazon Home. Like many of you, I am working from home more than usual these days. My district is currently 100% virtual through at least the middle of October. We are required to teach live 3 days a week and have asynchronous lessons on the other 2 days. I choose to stay home and record lessons, provide feedback to my students, grade, and plan on the asynchronous days. At the beginning of this unusual school year, I was going crazy working inside the house on the days that I didn’t go into school. I knew…

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Josie August 5, 2020

How to Use Merge Cubes This School Year

If you haven’t heard of Merge Cubes, then I think you may have been living under a rock for the past few years! If you want a class set of Merge Cubes and a free subscription, stay tuned until the end of this post! Three years ago my technology coach came to me with a Merge Cube in her hand. She was so excited to show me this new augmented reality cube to use in my science classroom. All you need is a cube and the app! The app reads the code on the cube and creates augmented reality through…

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Josie July 1, 2020

Simply Tidy with Michaels

I am so excited to show you a little sneak peek into my new at-home office! I have always wanted an office at home because all of my teacher related items are usually just all over my kitchen, bed, floor, etc. (you know the drill). I wanted a space that was dedicated to all of my classroom supplies I needed at home, while still being organized. I also didn’t want to break the bank while designing a space at home. With all of the unknowns with the upcoming school year, this organized space will also be perfect for teaching at…

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