How I Plan A Unit

My biggest challenge with starting a new grade level at a new school was not having a plan!  I hate not being prepared well in advance.  Before I left my old school, I had already made all of my copies for the upcoming year so that all I had to do was show up and teach and do a little grading now and then.  I didn't want to waste valuable hours standing in front of a copier when I could be at home snuggling The Little Man.  So, when I accepted this new position I started asking a LOT of questions.  I'm sure I annoyed my teammates, but a girl has got to have a plan.

First, I made a calendar for the school year with all of our days off blacked out.  Then I started plugging in all of my information.  This is what I call a "living document".  I am constantly tweaking it here and there.  (Like when I found out we had guidance one day a week and gifted and talented one day a week, so I could only teach writing three days a week.  Then fast forward to the second semester when I found out guidance was only for the first semester and now I can teach writing four days a week.)  But seriously, it helps my brain.  It makes my brain happy to know what is coming up.  I created a row for each subject that I teach and only plug the subjects into the days that I teach them.  (Science and social studies don't happen on Mondays and Wednesdays because we have computer lab.)  I also included the standard number for math and reading because we only teach one objective a week.  (Oklahoma doesn't do Common Core.)

Here is a close up:

I then plan out my unit.  I count up how many days I am going to teach a unit and start numbering a sheet of paper.  I start at the bottom and work my way up.  I want to focus on my end result and then break it down into each step.  It looks something like this:

For the record, I only typed it for this blog post.  Normally, I grab a piece of paper out of my printer, fold it in half, and start scribbling.