Let's be real, planning weekly lessons in the ESL classroom can be an overwhelming task. Factors include caseloads and the sheer number of students/small groups serviced. Also, heterogenous groupings with a variety of language levels make it difficult to target specific language needs of students. Perhaps you're a new teacher and simply haven't had the guidance yet on planning ESL lessons. Here are a few tips to help make planning less stressful. ESL instruction is often vague because, in most cases, there's no curriculum to follow or even to guide. We are left to our own devices to plan and provide lessons for our students that build language skills in the four language domains of listening, reading, speaking and writing. That alone can make planning overwhelming. Tie in grade level content and setting language goals, and it's a LOT to consider! Let's start with a few pre-planning tips. These will support successful lesson planning. PRE-PLANNING TIPS 1- Lesson Planner Book It's really important to have a place to keep all things planning in one place. I don't know where I'd be without my lesson plan book. Things I keep in my planner in addition to lesson plans are: 1- Student lists with ELP levels broken down by each domain, 2- The curriculum my students are learning in their gen ed classrooms so that I can integrate my ELD lessons with the grade level content whenever possible, 3- A calendar to keep me on track with events that impact my instructional schedule, such as meetings and testing, 4- Language goals and data collection to track student progress. There are some really awesome print and go planners, as well as digital planners out there. Find one that suits your needs AND brings you joy. :) 2- Know Your Students One of our main goals is to take students from their current language proficiency level to the next level. Knowing students and their needs is critical to planning appropriate lessons. Students have an English Language Proficiency (ELP) level, but what does that mean exactly? So, my student has an ELP level 3, but what can she do in each language domain? I won't know what to teach her if I don't know the starting point for her. Look at the breakdown of all 4 language domains and identify the weaker domains for each student. Keep this information in your plan book, or somewhere easily accessible. This is valuable information, but it's a very small piece of data. More importantly, I need to know what my students can do right now. Their latest scores might be 6 months old, so I want to also gather current data. Assessments I give at the beginning to determine starting points: phonemic awareness (newcomers) phonics writing (give a prompt that students have plenty of background knowledge) reading I need to know what level of reading I can expect from students, not just with decoding, but more importantly comprehending. For writing, if my student is a newcomer with little to no English, I want to see a sample of their writing in their native language. This will give a lot of information about the literacy skills new students bring to the table. Once I know what my students CAN DO, I can then plan targeted ELD lessons to meet their language and literacy needs. Without this information, I'd be trying to hit a target in the dark, and that's not servicing the students or myself. 3- Student Placement in Small Groups Each small group, in my opinion, should be homogeneous. I group students according to needs, not necessarily by ELP level, although generally it works out that most level 3 students, for example, have similar needs, but not always. Grouping students with similar needs is key to targeting the skills they need to move from one level to the next. OK, I've got my plan book, my student data and my small groups identified by need. Now what? Tips to Make Lesson Planning Less Stressful 1- Consistent Weekly Activities Incorporate consistent activities that target your students' needs, preferably that don't require planning time, and add them in your plan book every week. For example, I go through my plan book and add "phonics" to certain days for certain groups each week, so that's one less thing I need to plan. I have all the phonics materials on hand, so I simple print out and copy what I need and go. I also do an Idiom of the Week activity and a "Friday Focus on Grammar" for other groups. Those automatically go into my lesson plan book each week as well! Several of my groups have a warm-up activity when they first come into my room. The activity takes about 5-10 minutes, but that's another chunk of time I don't need to plan. My level 1s and 2s have an irregular sight word booklet, and my level 3s and 4s have a Restate the Question writing prompt. Irregular Sight Words - Warm Up Activity Finding consistent and meaningful weekly activities to add to your plan book cuts down on planning time. Other examples of weekly activities: -Grammar lessons (so many possibilities- What do YOUR students need?) -Vocabulary - multiple meaning words, synonyms/antonyms, shades of meaning words, content vocabulary, affixes, thematic monthly vocabulary, etc. -Idiom of the Week -Word Work - Affixes is a great focus area! -Read Alouds -Let's Talk! -oral language activities (purposeful oral language development is so important) One of my favorite "Let's Talk!" activities is projecting a picture and having students talk about what they see happening. It could be content related or simply an interesting photograph. An awesome resource for this is Chuck Dillon's website. He's such a fantastic illustrator! Each picture has tons of action, which means there's never a shortage of things to talk about. Pick a couple of "Weekly Activities" and plug them into your plan book each week. Here's a blog post that shares "3 Weekly Activities that Do Not Require Planning." 2 - "Go-To" Activities These are helpful to have on hand whenever you feel unsure about what to plan next, or you just need a meaningful "filler" lesson. We all need those from time to time. These lessons are still high-quality lessons that target the needs of our students, but they don't require planning time. Some Go-To Activity Examples: PWIM with any picture (picture word inductive model) Inferring using pictures 5 Ws and H using pictures Mind Maps Language Games This Build a Sentence activity uses the PWIM strategy to generate words about a picture. In this activity, we use the words to generate sentences of varying lengths. And on this particular day, I also challenged my students to use position words in their sentences. To start, I ask students to tell me something they see in the picture. The students generate the words and I write them on the board in different colors depending on the part of speech. Students also generate the sentences, and I support with grammar, as needed. It's a great activity to have on hand, as it covers many skills and is easily adaptable. They are "one and done" lesson activities that are meaningful AND build language skills. Having a variety of these resources to pull from definitely makes planning less stressful because I know I have language building lessons that I can plug in whenever needed. 3- Language Function or Thematic Units If you know me at all, you know I LOVE planning and teaching language function units. This truly makes my planning less overwhelming. MOST, if not all, of my students across multiple grade levels work on building language around the same language function, so when I plan, I have one LF in mind for everyone. Whoo-hoo! For example, when I teach the language of Compare and Contrast, I focus on that language with all of my groups. I don't have 10 different groups doing 10 different things; they are ALL learning the language of Compare/Contrast, which makes planning SO much more manageable! Some groups might need more focus on expressive language skills while others need more practice with receptive language skills, but I know that the overarching focus for all is the language of Compare/Contrast. Plus, often times I can reuse lessons with multiple groups. Halleluiah! And by tweaking lessons with some additional scaffolds, I can use them with even more groups. This is a huge time saver! Language Function: Compare/Contrast Language Function: Fact/Opinion Each language function unit lasts about 4 weeks; and once it's planned out, there's not a lot of additional planning that needs to be done during that time period. I don't start a new unit until all my groups are finished, so while I'm finishing up the unit with some groups, I use "filler" lessons with the groups that are already done. To learn more about incorporating language function units in the ESL classroom, check out the blog post links below. 4- Reusing lessons is honestly my #1 tip for making planning more manageable and less stressful. And maybe you can't use an entire lesson with multiple groups, but you can use a portion of the lesson. How many groups can I use this lesson with? How can I tweak this lesson so that I can use it with more groups? Those are questions I ask myself as I plan. RECAP: 1- Incorporate Consistent Weekly Activities (phonics, grammar, vocabulary) and plug them into your plan book each week. 2- Go-To Activities (have a variety of meaningful filler activities on hand) 3- Language Function Units (all groups learning the same Language Function) 4- Reuse Lessons with multiple groups! As I mentioned earlier, sometimes the overwhelming feeling of planning comes from the sheer number of students and groups serviced. Or it could be that our numbers are low, but we service 6-12 grade levels. Many ESL teachers travel between schools. There's a variety of reasons that can make planning stressful. Regardless of the reasons, having these tools in your teacher toolbox can help make planning less stressful. Linked below are some of the blog posts and instructional resources mentioned in this post. Teaching Language Functions with English Learners Language Forms and Functions in the ESL Classroom
Today I'm giving a glance into my first day of school lesson plans, from TK - 5th grade. In the first day of music class, students are arguably the most attentive they will be all year. This puts a unique pressure on the first day's lesson plan to set the tone for the rest of our time together.
Talking about responsibility can easily be a boring lecture for kids. We made it fun and interactive by talking about "whose job is it" for the important responsibilities in their lives!
Today I'm giving a glance into my first day of school lesson plans, from TK - 5th grade. In the first day of music class, students are arguably the most attentive they will be all year. This puts a unique pressure on the first day's lesson plan to set the tone for the rest of our time together.
Need Wonder activities for your classroom or home school Wonder teaching resources? We have Wonder lesson plans, Wonder worksheets, and more ideas for book projects, kindness activities for middle school, and diversity lessons to make a great study unit for students using both the novel by RJ Palacio and teaching with movies (including the popular precepts project!).
Teaching Canon Singing. Organized Chaos. Strategies for introducing canons in elementary choir or general music lessons.
Lesson Aims: Students will be able to play Chinese jump rope using actions learned in today’s class (left, right, inside, outside, on). Students will be able to sing the “England, Ireland, Scotland…
Self Control Counseling Lesson - This self control classroom counseling lesson plan will help students in grades 1-2 understand what self control is and what self control looks like, sounds like, and feels like. Students learn ways of demonstrating self control and then practice during a yoga movement break and partner turn taking activity. What's included: Detailed, scripted lesson plan (color and BW) Visual aid (color and BW) Whole class sorting activity (color and BW) Individual student fortune teller handout (color and BW, blank and pre-filled) FAQS: Q: Do I need extra materials? A: You'll need your favorite self control read-aloud, like Clark the Shark or What If Everybody Did That? You'll also need scissors, writing utensils, and coloring utensils. Q: How long will this take? A: I did this lesson in a 45-minute block with my first grade students. All students are different. Q: Can I use this in small groups or with an individual student? A: Absolutely! Find more self control resources here!
Wondering how to organize your sub tub or what to put in your emergency sub plans? I will show you how I plan out my entire year of substitute plans!
The Gruffalo lesson plans for K-2. Engaging 5-day lesson plans with differentiated reading response, vocabulary, sentence study, and a craft for this fun story!
The last two components of my math block are the math lesson and lesson assessment. I use the 5-E lesson model to teach new math content. I like the 5-E model because it allows the students to explore and discover the content on their own before I provide additional information and strategies. The 5-E model also allows me to facilitate the lesson through questioning and assess the students' understanding throughout the lesson through my observations. While I regularly plan my lessons using this format, I have found it necessary to adapt the format to fit the needs of my students. With that in mind, I will add that this lesson format may take me more than one day to complete and I sometimes complete several explore and explain cycles before getting to the Elaboration stage. It all depends on the students! I have included the lesson format below along with a description of each of the five Es and activity ideas that can be used to address each component.
Your first week of math lesson plans should include these five elements to ensure students are ready to learn, use math tools, and work together! FREE resource.
Thematic unit lesson plans and printables for elementary, kindergarten and preschool, perfect as a screen-free homeschool curriculum too.
This Elementary Technology Curriculum includes over 200 lessons and activities for grades K-5 that will save you so much time coming up with what to do in the computer lab. It is ideal for a technology teacher, media specialist, tech facilitator, or grade level teachers with mandatory lab time. All of the work is done for you! This is for you if: You want students who can log in, access any programs, type efficiently, and use technology to learn. You want students who are confident in using the technology required for standardized testing. You have limited time– in one 45 minute session per week, your students can develop technology literacy while completing engaging projects. You need it to be effortless for YOU and fun for your students. My name is Brittany Washburn and I’m an educator obsessed with ed tech. This curriculum was created over 3 school years when I had nothing for materials for my technology specials. I was spending my nights and weekends scouring Pinterest and Google for ideas because I knew my students deserved engaging lessons even if I had to do everything from scratch. I found myself exhausted and frustrated and just knew there had to be an easier way. That is when I discovered the magic of having my own class website and screencasting my instructions. I created a modified-flipped-classroom before I even knew that was a thing. Students were working at their own pace and they stopped asking me to repeat instructions. I felt like I had struck gold! I tested and perfected the activities with them and now I’ve made them available to you!
Writing lesson plans for the entire year! Complete writing units to help you teach writing in kindergarten and 1st grade.
DISCLAIMER: I am offering these lessons, handouts and videos to you for free. PLEASE do not take my lessons and sell them. Because that would be super crappy of you (yes, someone is doing this. Yes, they are super crappy). Thank you. Going to NAEA in Boston next week? Need some sub plans? Y'all, I got you COVERED! Today I'm sharing my favorite VIDEO sub plans and my tips and tricks to planning for being out. There's nothing like the amount of WORK you gotta do just to take some time off. I'm here to make your life a little easier, I hope. So, without further ado, my Top Ten Sub Plans! Let me just start by saying that the sub plans I am sharing were created for my kindergarten through fourth grade kids. I ALWAYS make a lesson that's age appropriate for all my classes. This makes my prep life so much easier and the life of the sub all the better. For more tips and tricks, check out this video! Lessons like this require a lotta prep. Yeah, I will be keeping it much easier this time. More about how I prep for a sub can be found in this blog post. 1. James Rizzi Cities! This sub plan was a huge hit with all of my kiddos. They started it while I was away and I was able to easily slide back in to a low-mess/low-stress project for them to continue. Lesson, handouts and video can be found here! 2. Loud Mouth Collages! My kids thought these were the most fun ever...while I thought they were the most funniest ever. Complete video lesson and plans here! 3. A Colorful Village! Again this is another lesson that the kids work on while I'm away and we finish up with oil pastel and watercolor when I return. Easy, fun and super colorful. Video and lesson here! 4. Chris Uphues Inspired Hearts! Who doesn't love Chris Uphues and his happy artwork?! My kids love learning about him. I've not only got a video lesson but I have a short clip of an interview I did with Chris and his wife Jen. More here! 5. I am a Super Star! This lessons is so fun...it really incorporates so much, from mixed media to literacy to a good ole boost to the self esteem! I DID ask the sub to make the stars for the kindergarten before they arrived because I'm not that crazy. Lesson here! 6. Collage Monsters! Another fun lesson that the kids really enjoyed. This one required more prep than most, just an FYI. Complete details and video here! 7. Kerri Ambrosino-Inspired Still Life! Need a pop of colorful happy for spring? Try this sub plan on for size. So fun and we busted out the PUFFY PAINT! Lesson here. 8. Wings Mural! I know, you've seen it a thousand times...but the lesson originated here! The feathers were created while I was out on jury duty, I believe...and then we assembled it when I returned. Lesson and video here. 9. Britto-Inspired Collaborative! I love having the kids work on collaboratives when I'm out. It means we have a big beautiful work of art to hang when I return! Lesson video and details all right here! 10. Monochromatic Self Portraits! Lastly, here's a lesson that's always a hit: monochromatic self portraits. We love hanging these in rainbow order for a beautiful display. Have your kiddos follow along with me in this video! There are PLENTY more lessons and videos on my YouTube channel so be sure and give those a glance if none of these strike your fancy. And be sure to subscribe, I upload videos and content all the time. If you are gonna be in Boston, see you there!
Lesson Plans from physical education lesson plan template, image source: pinterest.com
Fun and easy composition game for third grade and beyond with die cuts from the dollar store! Simple to make and use!
Let's be real, planning weekly lessons in the ESL classroom can be an overwhelming task. Factors include caseloads and the sheer number of students/small groups serviced. Also, heterogenous groupings with a variety of language levels make it difficult to target specific language needs of students. Perhaps you're a new teacher and simply haven't had the guidance yet on planning ESL lessons. Here are a few tips to help make planning less stressful. ESL instruction is often vague because, in most cases, there's no curriculum to follow or even to guide. We are left to our own devices to plan and provide lessons for our students that build language skills in the four language domains of listening, reading, speaking and writing. That alone can make planning overwhelming. Tie in grade level content and setting language goals, and it's a LOT to consider! Let's start with a few pre-planning tips. These will support successful lesson planning. PRE-PLANNING TIPS 1- Lesson Planner Book It's really important to have a place to keep all things planning in one place. I don't know where I'd be without my lesson plan book. Things I keep in my planner in addition to lesson plans are: 1- Student lists with ELP levels broken down by each domain, 2- The curriculum my students are learning in their gen ed classrooms so that I can integrate my ELD lessons with the grade level content whenever possible, 3- A calendar to keep me on track with events that impact my instructional schedule, such as meetings and testing, 4- Language goals and data collection to track student progress. There are some really awesome print and go planners, as well as digital planners out there. Find one that suits your needs AND brings you joy. :) 2- Know Your Students One of our main goals is to take students from their current language proficiency level to the next level. Knowing students and their needs is critical to planning appropriate lessons. Students have an English Language Proficiency (ELP) level, but what does that mean exactly? So, my student has an ELP level 3, but what can she do in each language domain? I won't know what to teach her if I don't know the starting point for her. Look at the breakdown of all 4 language domains and identify the weaker domains for each student. Keep this information in your plan book, or somewhere easily accessible. This is valuable information, but it's a very small piece of data. More importantly, I need to know what my students can do right now. Their latest scores might be 6 months old, so I want to also gather current data. Assessments I give at the beginning to determine starting points: phonemic awareness (newcomers) phonics writing (give a prompt that students have plenty of background knowledge) reading I need to know what level of reading I can expect from students, not just with decoding, but more importantly comprehending. For writing, if my student is a newcomer with little to no English, I want to see a sample of their writing in their native language. This will give a lot of information about the literacy skills new students bring to the table. Once I know what my students CAN DO, I can then plan targeted ELD lessons to meet their language and literacy needs. Without this information, I'd be trying to hit a target in the dark, and that's not servicing the students or myself. 3- Student Placement in Small Groups Each small group, in my opinion, should be homogeneous. I group students according to needs, not necessarily by ELP level, although generally it works out that most level 3 students, for example, have similar needs, but not always. Grouping students with similar needs is key to targeting the skills they need to move from one level to the next. OK, I've got my plan book, my student data and my small groups identified by need. Now what? Tips to Make Lesson Planning Less Stressful 1- Consistent Weekly Activities Incorporate consistent activities that target your students' needs, preferably that don't require planning time, and add them in your plan book every week. For example, I go through my plan book and add "phonics" to certain days for certain groups each week, so that's one less thing I need to plan. I have all the phonics materials on hand, so I simple print out and copy what I need and go. I also do an Idiom of the Week activity and a "Friday Focus on Grammar" for other groups. Those automatically go into my lesson plan book each week as well! Several of my groups have a warm-up activity when they first come into my room. The activity takes about 5-10 minutes, but that's another chunk of time I don't need to plan. My level 1s and 2s have an irregular sight word booklet, and my level 3s and 4s have a Restate the Question writing prompt. Irregular Sight Words - Warm Up Activity Finding consistent and meaningful weekly activities to add to your plan book cuts down on planning time. Other examples of weekly activities: -Grammar lessons (so many possibilities- What do YOUR students need?) -Vocabulary - multiple meaning words, synonyms/antonyms, shades of meaning words, content vocabulary, affixes, thematic monthly vocabulary, etc. -Idiom of the Week -Word Work - Affixes is a great focus area! -Read Alouds -Let's Talk! -oral language activities (purposeful oral language development is so important) One of my favorite "Let's Talk!" activities is projecting a picture and having students talk about what they see happening. It could be content related or simply an interesting photograph. An awesome resource for this is Chuck Dillon's website. He's such a fantastic illustrator! Each picture has tons of action, which means there's never a shortage of things to talk about. Pick a couple of "Weekly Activities" and plug them into your plan book each week. Here's a blog post that shares "3 Weekly Activities that Do Not Require Planning." 2 - "Go-To" Activities These are helpful to have on hand whenever you feel unsure about what to plan next, or you just need a meaningful "filler" lesson. We all need those from time to time. These lessons are still high-quality lessons that target the needs of our students, but they don't require planning time. Some Go-To Activity Examples: PWIM with any picture (picture word inductive model) Inferring using pictures 5 Ws and H using pictures Mind Maps Language Games This Build a Sentence activity uses the PWIM strategy to generate words about a picture. In this activity, we use the words to generate sentences of varying lengths. And on this particular day, I also challenged my students to use position words in their sentences. To start, I ask students to tell me something they see in the picture. The students generate the words and I write them on the board in different colors depending on the part of speech. Students also generate the sentences, and I support with grammar, as needed. It's a great activity to have on hand, as it covers many skills and is easily adaptable. They are "one and done" lesson activities that are meaningful AND build language skills. Having a variety of these resources to pull from definitely makes planning less stressful because I know I have language building lessons that I can plug in whenever needed. 3- Language Function or Thematic Units If you know me at all, you know I LOVE planning and teaching language function units. This truly makes my planning less overwhelming. MOST, if not all, of my students across multiple grade levels work on building language around the same language function, so when I plan, I have one LF in mind for everyone. Whoo-hoo! For example, when I teach the language of Compare and Contrast, I focus on that language with all of my groups. I don't have 10 different groups doing 10 different things; they are ALL learning the language of Compare/Contrast, which makes planning SO much more manageable! Some groups might need more focus on expressive language skills while others need more practice with receptive language skills, but I know that the overarching focus for all is the language of Compare/Contrast. Plus, often times I can reuse lessons with multiple groups. Halleluiah! And by tweaking lessons with some additional scaffolds, I can use them with even more groups. This is a huge time saver! Language Function: Compare/Contrast Language Function: Fact/Opinion Each language function unit lasts about 4 weeks; and once it's planned out, there's not a lot of additional planning that needs to be done during that time period. I don't start a new unit until all my groups are finished, so while I'm finishing up the unit with some groups, I use "filler" lessons with the groups that are already done. To learn more about incorporating language function units in the ESL classroom, check out the blog post links below. 4- Reusing lessons is honestly my #1 tip for making planning more manageable and less stressful. And maybe you can't use an entire lesson with multiple groups, but you can use a portion of the lesson. How many groups can I use this lesson with? How can I tweak this lesson so that I can use it with more groups? Those are questions I ask myself as I plan. RECAP: 1- Incorporate Consistent Weekly Activities (phonics, grammar, vocabulary) and plug them into your plan book each week. 2- Go-To Activities (have a variety of meaningful filler activities on hand) 3- Language Function Units (all groups learning the same Language Function) 4- Reuse Lessons with multiple groups! As I mentioned earlier, sometimes the overwhelming feeling of planning comes from the sheer number of students and groups serviced. Or it could be that our numbers are low, but we service 6-12 grade levels. Many ESL teachers travel between schools. There's a variety of reasons that can make planning stressful. Regardless of the reasons, having these tools in your teacher toolbox can help make planning less stressful. Linked below are some of the blog posts and instructional resources mentioned in this post. Teaching Language Functions with English Learners Language Forms and Functions in the ESL Classroom
Beatitudes Lesson Two: Blessed are the Poor in Spirit Main idea: We receive the gift of the kingdom of heaven when we realize how much we need God. This Bible Lesson Plans for Kids "Blessed are the Poor in Spirit" Sunday School Lesson
Use this collection of Georges Seurat pointillism teaching resources and complete Famous Artist Unit lesson plans for elementary art classes.
This foil pritntmaking method produces monoprints but the foil printing plate can be used over and over. Foil prints are a great experience for any age!
Teachers Notebook from phys ed lesson plan template, image source: pinterest.com
Teaching multisensory math techniques as well as incorporating multisensory math activities into lesson plans is not only best practice for students
One of the most frequent questions I have been asked is how I use Unique in my classroom and how I plan! I have to admit, I am an avid fan of Unique Learning System, however, I do not use ALL components of the unit. I have been using ULS for about 5 years now, enough to have figured out which pieces of the unit fit best with my students. One of the good things about Unique is that they provide you with an abundance of materials. I have not met one teacher yet that is able to use ALL of the plans from the unit (and if you are one of those teachers more power to ya!). For me, the key is to find what works best for your students! Monthly Mapping The first thing I do is grab a monthly calendar and my blank planning template (I will post the link to this free resource below). I mark all the days that we will be off and out of school. Once I have those days crossed off I start my planning. I print the first page from the unit that lists all the lessons. I plan when I will give my pre-assessment and then when I want my students to have their post assessment. If you do not use the Unique GPS, I highly recommend it! You can see student weak areas, what they need to focus on and you can see their growth over the month. I love it! Next, I choose the activities that I feel best introduce the topics to my students and highlight them. After I have all the activities chosen, I add them into my calendar. Unique GPS data FREE Blank Template Download Template Here Selecting the Activities I have used Unique long enough to discover what works best for me and my students. It has changed yearly. This year, I used the following activities consistently every month: Leveled Book (Lesson 1) and corresponding activity Leveled Book Comprehension (Lesson 2) Easy Read Book (Lesson 3) and corresponding activity Easy Read Book Comprehension (Lesson 4) Vocabulary (Lesson 12) Literary Experience (Lessons 15 and 16) Vocabulary Sort (Lesson 18) Science Experiment (Lesson 28) History Timeline (Lesson 29) Supplemental Activities I use: Adapted Book Packs (samples of the packs in the picks below!) I created these book packs to help me supplement the curriculum because I needed more books! I started creating differentiated activities to go along with the books. Each adapted book set comes with at least 3 adpated books each book with 3 differentiated corresponding comprehension activities. 1 file folder game to cover vocabulary, 2 differentiated levels of vocabulary task boxes, and 1 counting card activity directly related to the monthly theme. Some packs include bonus materials! Science Adapted Book Packs I currently have 11 science themed activities listed and 5 science themed adapted book packs available. You can find the link to them above. I also have them available in a BUNDLE. Social Studies Adapted Book Packs I currently have 6 adapted book packs available. I also have these bundled for convenience. You can find the bundle here. Craft Activities related to topic Extension Activities from higher level unit N2Y activities Summer Themes: Summer Camp Theme Amusement Park Theme Planning the Lessons I don't have a ton of time in my classroom to teach science and social studies content. On top of all the IEP work, speech, occupational therapy, physical therapy, specials, and getting them out to gen ed, I needed to integrate my lessons. So, my planning had to be simplified and integrated. During my small group/morning meeting I decided that when I was reading books, they needed to be adapted and content related. So my first step in my planning is mapping out my literacy activities. You can see those in the picture below color-coded in purple. After I have those planned, I go back and plan on my specific content related activities, which are usually only 15 minutes long. Those are in the picture below color-coded in green. The best part about planning this way, is once I have one month planned, I can pretty much easily plug in the rest of the year's lesson plans! I just re-use the same format and timeline from the first month. Some adjustments might need to be made based on days off, special activities, but for the most part, it's quick and easy to plug in my plans for the month! Ideas for Lessons Vocabulary I always like to introduce the topics from the unit by introducing the new vocabulary. Some things that I have done in the past to make these activities fun and engaging: Mystery Box- add items to a box and have the students feel items and take guesses on what the new unit is going to be about. Example: for the light and sound unit I put a light bulb and a tamborine in the box and had students feel and guess what the items were. Play Hide and Seek- Hide new vocabulary words around the room and have students find them. When they find a vocabulary word have them read it to you. Mystery Word- Put vocabulary words in a brown paper bag and have students choose a word from the bag and tell class and hang up the word Put students in charge of changing the words- Our words are hanging on the wall next to our white board, I like to lay all the vocab words on the table and ask the student to find ______ and hang it on the wall. After I have introduced the vocabulary we play the corresponding match game the next day. I like to incorporate the leveled books during my literacy lessons. Typically, I will introduce the first book, and have students find the vocabulary words and highlight them. For my lower level students, the adapted book packs I use incorporate the vocabulary making it quick and easy for you to assess using the books. I typically read the book and have my students make selections from the icons from a field of 2 or 3 depending on the student. I make sure to emphasize the unit vocabulary words during the story and direct instruction. We do the vocabulary sort around three weeks into instruction so that I know the students have a had good quality time to absorb the content. I usually use this as an assessment, and students complete either individually or with some physical assistance. For my higher level students they complete independently and have very little accommodations. For my lower level students they complete with some assistance (for physical needs) but I color code their sorts to make it more independent for them. Color-Coded Vocabulary Sort (Not from Unique, but strategy I use for differentiation) Adapted Books/Literacy I use both of the leveled books provided in the unit. I adapt them so they are interactive and the students can use icons to engage in the story. If the book warrants, I will use props to keep the kids excited about the story. I use these books to cover content, otherwise I would not have time! My typical routine for literacy is: Introduce the book Read and emphasize vocabulary Have students match icons to story from a field of 2 or 3 Complete literacy activity and discuss vocabulary Re-read book focusing on content Comprehension assessment I repeat these steps for the five books that I use during the unit. I created my adapted book packs so that I would always have a content related book to read and an activity to correlate! It makes my literacy planning so much easier! I love using the literary experience. I use these monthly but pick and choose upon availability of the books that correspond with that lesson. Adapted Books for "Plants Can Grow" Unit Adapted Book Packs Props for acting out story "Bunny in the Garden" Science Experiment I love doing the science experiments with the kids! I love getting them excited about them! I typically do my science experiment the third week of instruction however in this example (May) I needed to do it sooner due to the nature of the experiment (keeping plants healthy). I break my experiments down into smaller sections to increase engagement. Here is my typical routine for science experiments: Day 1- Introduce experiment- show items used in experiment, pass out experiment packet, look through experiment and discuss our steps. Day 2- Re-read experiment, discuss and make hypothesis, "check off" materials to make sure we are ready to go! Day 3- Conduct Experiment - following steps of experiment Day 4- Review our experiment, complete conclusion I try to do experiments on Thursdays because we have extra time on this day because we have no specials! One fun way I like to get them excited is to purposely leave materials for the experiment out around the classroom. When they find them, I say, "I guess you'll have to wait and see for experiment day!" Science Experiment "Keeping Plants Healthy" Crafts I like to do crafts related to the topics of our units. I usually just pinterest or try to think of my own. Also, if you have access to the intermediate level of the unit, they have crafts as part of their lessons! I usually pull from that unit as well. Craft for "Our Impact on the Environment" Unit Craft for "Plants Can Grow" Unit How do you plan your units? I would love to hear new tips and tricks! Drop a comment below if you have any suggestions for me! Follow my classroom journey on instagram for more ideas, tips, and fun!
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Looking to craft a jam-packed ESL lesson plan when you only have 30 minutes? Here is my favorite ESL lesson plan sequence.
Prepare for the school year by organizing your curriculum for your self-contained special education classroom.
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An elementary teaching blog sharing K-3 curriculum resources, teacher tips, fun activities, and inspiration for the lower elementary primary grades.
Check out this post for ten great music activities for elementary students set to iconic music by composer John Williams.
+JMJ So I've been working on this below.... Feel free to download if you can use them. The first one is actually specific to our Texas Process Standards for 5th grade. The others are just general to help you if you need help in small groups. I'll actually add more specifics for the other contents soon. Happy Teaching! Edit: I will not be able to put up a free editable version as intended. I apologize for the inconvenience. =( Please feel free to print out the above. =)
This resource can be used on its own as a weekly assessment to guide instruction. However, is it particularly effective if used as a Friday assessment in conjunction with my 5-A-Day Math Review. My 5-A-Day Math Review contains 5 daily math tasks for (Monday-Thursday). This resource is now EDITABLE!!! Easily edit the student pages using PowerPoint
Lesson Plans for teaching about the cardiovascular and circulatory systems. Homeschool Science Lesson Plans for the Heart, the Beating Heart. Learn about the heart with kids in this free homeschool Heart Unit Study and anatomy curriculum. Study the human heart in this homeschool unit study.
Since my elementary school is in-person/seated at this time, I am doing Library on a Cart for the foreseeable future. With the unknowns that can occur at any time and with the possibility of being quarantined due to COVID-19 exposure, my goal is to have several weeks worth of substitute lesson plans ready in case I would need to be absent and not have time to plan. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on sub plans and I wanted to try to keep the ideas super simple and easy for a sub to complete with my classes since they have to go into 21 different classrooms throughout the week and will not likely complete check-in/out. I thought this might be beneficial for some of you, as well. I added multi-age resource links, book specific links and fillers. Click on the picture below to take you to the Google Slide with resource links. This document will be a work in progress, so be sure to check back often. Here's to hoping we never have to use these, but staying hopeful that we'll be prepared if necessary! :)
It is the first week of kindergarten! What do I teach? I get this question all the time! I am so excited to put together this page together for you. I’m sharing our favorite first week of kindergarten read aloud stories and the free coordinating printables I made to go with them. Plus I will s
