School’s Out for SUMMER!!! Time for Teachers’ to take an Emotional and Physical Break but not a Mental Break…
Teachers are so lucky because they get the summer off… said no teacher ever! A teacher’s work is never done.
So, what are we doing all summer? Prepping for the next school year, and if you are lucky enough to be teaching the same thing then you are tweaking your plans from the previous year. However, many of us get at least one brand new prep the next school year so that is starting from the beginning all over again. Either way, we are constantly searching for the most efficient way for us to plan everything. If you have been teaching for a while, you have already figured out that there is no one size fits all in education – and that is true for teachers as well. We all work a little differently. So if you are still on that search for what is going to work best for you or you are looking to tweak some of your current systems then let us tell you what works for us.
Curriculum / Pacing
Some B&M (brick and mortar) teachers get a set curriculum, so they are primarily spending the summer searching for activities or supplemental resources to support their set schedule. However, other B&M teachers are given a classroom and told “good luck!” If you are one of those and are trying to piece together curriculum materials to make the year work, then our advice is to start with a pacing guide. This singular piece of planning can help ensure that you get to everything you want to accomplish. How many times have we heard fellow teachers (or we have said it ourselves) that we didn’t get to everything we wanted to accomplish. Will we ever? Maybe or maybe not but utilizing a pacing guide is the best first step in the process. Here's how we approached planning:
Yearly Overview: Start with an overview of the entire year based on months. Identify the bigger topics and assign them to specific months.
Monthly Breakdown: Break down those months into more specific topics based on how long you assume each topic will take.
Weekly Breakdown: Finally, break those weeks into a few lessons, an activity / game, and an assessment.
Before you know it, your entire year will be planned out in an overview, which will greatly assist with your detailed weekly lesson planning.
Check out our planning templates to help you prep for the coming year. Included in the bundle are the planning sheets we talked about, but also a bell ringer template, an exit ticket template, and notes templates! These templates work for all subjects and are suitable for both B&M classroom, virtual classroom, and home-school curricula.
Check back in next week when we tackle more summer planning prep ideas.
