Thread: planning advice?

I know I'm probably completely NUTS, but I plan my whole year during the summer. I take our state core content, a map of the school year, and start planning!

I always have my first two units ready to go before school begins, and I work on updates to the others before I begin them. (I usually start new units after breaks from school, so I work some during my breaks.)

Like I said, I'm probably nuts!

You are not behind, you just need to adjust. A plan is a projection, or a prediction of what you are going to teach. A good teacher adjusts their plans and time lines as they go. Noting when things took longer than usual or when things went quickly.

Don't worry about it. I plan one to two weeks ahead in detail, knowing full well that I will not do things on that schedule and I will carry over some if not alot of things. I look at it this way, if I am going to meet the needs of my kids I am going to have to adjust my plans as I go. You are going to have to be flexible and realize a plan is just that a plan. It is not set in stone, nor is it absolute. You do what you can to teach your objectives. If that takes longer then it takes longer.

Here is my advice. Plan to meet objectives, but don't limit your time. If you want to get something done in a week, and you are behind, then the stress will cause you to short change the kids in your hurry to meet a meaningless deadline. Ignore the pacing guides, they are the enemy. The ones who wrote it were not teaching your students.

I also always set aside MORE time than I think I'll need and more activities than I think I can use.

And like Mark said, adjust as you go. It's just about impossible to keep within a strict time frame.

You might consider ADD medication.

Originally Posted by anonymouseducator

You might consider ADD medication.

??

I take the school year calendar put out by the district and block out my units to start. (this lets me see when vacations are - I tend to use vacations as endings for units - they forget everything otherwise!)

I then plan by the unit or month. [url="http://www.myfreecalendarmaker.com"]www.myfreecalendarmaker.com[/url] is a place where I print monthly calendars from so I can see a month at a time.

Then I list all the things I want to do during that unit, and start plugging them into the calendar. I use pencil - I always revise! I use this calendar as my working plan book. After I have done the day, I'll add it into my real plan book... things change!

Good luck

You have gotten great advise with the exception of one and I guess you figured out which one. :lol:

I have blocked put which units I will cover each quarter. But, I think most of us would agree that Mark's advise is the the way to go: "Plan to meet objectives, but don't limit your time. If you want to get something done in a week, and you are behind, then the stress will cause you to short change the kids in your hurry to meet a meaningless deadline. Ignore the pacing guides, they are the enemy. The ones who wrote it were not teaching your students."

The purpose of blocking out the units (for me anyway) is to not spend more time than necessary on any one unit. But don't get stressed out it if is necessary to spend more time than you allotted.

The purpose of blocking out the units (for me anyway) is to not spend more time than necessary on any one unit. But don't get stressed out it if is necessary to spend more time than you allotted.

That's a good point. We divided our content EVENLY throughout the year, and planned it so that we had ALL the core content finished by spring break . . . since we test right after . . . and then we spend the rest of the year doing our favorite things.

I know that I really, really love poetry and short stories, so if I didn't have a master schedule, I'd spend WAY too much time on those.

Me too Ima. My first degree is in Creative Writing. If I don't plan out what I do and focus on the objectives, I mean really focus, I could take several months just reading writing and interpreting poetry. Short Stories could go just as long.