My Lesson Plans

One of the hardest things for me to learn as a teacher is how to plan lessons efficiently. Many teachers prefer to do their plans differently. Elementary teachers, in my experience, seem to have more detailed plans as they teach many subjects.

I keep my lesson plans short and concise so that they’re easy to look at. I make sure to add objectives and what the chapter goals are. I put these objectives on the board at the front of the room every day. I type up a plan and save it by date, that way it’s easy to access and change next year. Even in my fourth year of teaching, I have NEVER just pulled a lesson plan and taught it the same way as I did the year before. Your kids are different each year!

I also keep a binder of the state standards on my bookshelf, and I plan on adding these next year. (I know a lot of the standards by heart as they were drilled into us in college, so I trust my ability to write lesson plans that hit standards. Foreign language is also relatively easy because you just ask yourself, "What is going to help my students become fluent readers, speakers, and 'understanders' of the language?").

I spent the first three years just writing down what I wanted to do that day in a calendar, and it really sucked the next year trying to figure out what my short little notes meant! I am so glad that I am taking the time this year to write out plans. It really doesn’t take me that long, and it will be so worth it next year.

Here is a sample of one of my lesson plans. To be honest, scripting plans makes me more nervous than not scripting, because I feel like I have to memorize it. To me, teaching is an art that is to be learned over time. Personally, scripting doesn’t help me, but it may help you! Take the time to discover what works for you.