CCP: Episode 24 //Curriculum Mapping and Planning For a New School Year
What makes the crock-pot one of the best kitchen inventions?
It’s the fact that you can prep ahead of time, set it, and then forget it. You do the work early on, and then you don’t have to think about it as you go about your day. Then, once dinner time rolls around, all you have to do is grab a fork!
You can do the same when it comes to planning for a new school year, too. Spend some time early on planning and mapping out curriculum and systems that will serve you the whole school year.
In this episode, I’m talking all about the things that you can do NOW (before the school year starts) so that you don’t have to spend time, or even THINK about it once the school year begins.
Highlights from the Episode:
(Timestamps Shown)
Why spending time during the summer to curriculum map out your year can reap huge rewards later on in the school year, AND the biggest hurdle teachers have when it comes to curriculum mapping (4:46)
Plan and prep your Back to School activities during the summer (7:51):
plans activities for students to complete independently when they first arrive on the first day of school
plans activities to keep students moving and action
plan activities to help build classroom community
plan a craft or project for students to complete that will double as an open house display
Tips for choosing your first class read-aloud (12:52)
Developing a plan for teaching routines and procedures (13:58)
routines and procedures for behavioral expectations
routines and procedures for student work periods
routines and procedures for working with classroom supplies and materials
routines and procedures for transitioning and moving from one activity to another
Classroom systems to prep now for smooth sailing the rest of the year (18:28)
prep a class set of birthday gifts
prep your system for easily communicating with parents (prep simple generic reminder slips)
prep some fast finisher activities to have on hand
prep your substitute tub and binder
prep your student data binder
Resources and Links Mentioned in the Episode:
Video tutorial: Getting into the Mindset of Curriculum Mapping
5 Chapter Books The Every Elementary Classroom Library Should Have
Creating a Diverse and Inclusive Classroom Library Collection
Setting Up Classroom Routines and Procedures
Set it and Forget it: Classroom Activities & Systems To Prep For Year-Long Use
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Transcript
CCP: Episode 24 //Curriculum Mapping and Planning Ahead During the Summer transcript powered by Sonix—easily convert your audio to text with Sonix.
CCP: Episode 24 //Curriculum Mapping and Planning Ahead During the Summer was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best audio automated transcription service in 2020. Our automated transcription algorithms works with many of the popular audio file formats.
Hey, teachers, if you have a classroom and a commute, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Rachael, and I want to ride along with you each week on your ride into school. This podcast is the place for busy teachers who want actionable tips, simple strategies, and just want to enjoy their job more. Let's go.
Before we jump into the show, I want to let you in on a little secret. In fact, it's the best kept teachers secret that I've come across in a long time -- and I want everyone to know about it. For years, I would drive to my local print shop to have classroom decorations and resources that I created printed off in color. Now, only did this cost me a lot of money, fifty-six cents a page, to be exact - But it was such a hassle and a waste of time to drive all the way over to the print shop, often on a weekly basis, and wait for my order to be complete.
That's why I was thrilled when I came across the HP Instant Ink Program. HP Instant Ink is the perfect membership for teachers who do a lot of printing in black and white, or even color, and they want to be able to do so for only a few dollars each month using an Instant Ink approved printer - I got mine for under a hundred bucks. You can print your classroom resources right at home for as little as $2.99 a month. They have several plans to choose from to meet your printing needs. And the best part -- Instant Ink keeps track of your printing ink levels and will ship you new ink before you run out so that you never go low on ink in the middle of a project. This program has been a lifesaver for me and has saved me so much time and money, so I couldn't keep it a secret any longer. Right now you can get a free month of Instant Ink to get started. Just go to classroomnook.com/instantink to get all the details. Happy printing.
Well, hey there, Rachael here from The Classroom Commute Podcast. I'm your host and welcome back to another episode where we are diving deep into back to school planning. We are currently in week three of a really fun free teacher summer challenge called Getting Your Year in Gear. And if you are just joining us for the first time, make sure you head over to classroomnook.com/yearingear to get all the details about this amazing challenge that thousands of teachers are participating in right now to help plan and organize their classrooms and get ready for a new school year. And each week here on the podcast, while the challenge is going on, I've been highlighting some really great tips and strategies that anybody can use to get ready for a new school year.
Now, I know it's June and next school year might be really far from your mind at this point. And that's OK. If you're not ready to do the tasks and the activities of this challenge right now, you can join in any time you want. But if you do a little planning a little at a time, it won't feel so overwhelming. So that's why I start this challenge a lot sooner in the summer so that teachers can really space it out. I've partnered with my really good friend Mary Beth from Brain Waves Instruction. She's a middle school guru teacher as well as curriculum developer. And her and I have teamed up to put this challenge together for you.
So if you have not already joined in head over to classroomnook.com/yearingear to get all the details and get signed up today. As I mentioned, we're in week three and in week three, we are going to talk all about the things that you can plan and prep now to save yourself a ton of time later. I am a huge fan of using my time during the summer, when things are a little bit slower and not as busy, to tackle some tasks that would normally take me a long time during the school year because I'm so distracted with other things. So I'm going to encourage you in this episode to hammer out some of those details that will set you up for some major success later on in the school year.
Now, I wanted to let you know before we hit the ground running that everything that we are talking about today is going to be in the show notes at classroomnook.com/podcast/24. You're going to want to take some notes on this one because we're going to cover a lot. All right. Let's dive right in.
I'm going to start with the toughest one. Let's get this one out of the way. You really want to take your time in the summer to curriculum map and do it the right way.
There were several years of teaching where I was just flying by the seat of my pants, going from unit to unit and not really knowing what I was going to be teaching next week, let alone next month, or down the road even further. Forget about mapping out the curriculum for my entire year. It just did not happen. And the results? Well, I would get to June and I would still have several untouched units that I was supposed to teach my students. And I just didn't get to them. Or - I'd find myself with just a month left of school and I would quickly breeze over some of that content that I know my students needed before they moved on to the next grade.
Does that sound familiar? If so, then curriculum mapping is something that you really should consider doing in the summer. And if you're like me, the thought of curriculum mapping makes you feel super overwhelmed and you just dread it. It's tedious. It's time consuming and it can often be confusing thinking about how you're going to fit everything in, how your content areas are going to connect with one another and how you're going to make it all happen.
I think one of the biggest hurdles that teachers have when it comes to curriculum mapping is getting into the mindset of curriculum mapping. To be successful, you have to focus your mind on the process of curriculum mapping, knowing where to start and where you want to end up.
And I've got a great resource to help walk you through this. Instead of just giving you fast facts about curriculum mapping. I put together a video tutorial that walks you through the entire process to help you wrap your mind around how to get started and be successful with curriculum mapping. So I'm going to link to that video in the show notes and please check it out. I promise it doesn't have to be daunting and it could be something that you might actually enjoy. So head to the show notes at classroomnook.com/podcast/24 to get your hands on that video and watch it. And if you're in the Getting Your Year in Gear teacher challenge, we also have some additional resources for you there as well -- some long-range planning guides as well as some curriculum mapping and planning sheets and templates so that you can be successful with curriculum mapping. And of course, nothing is written in stone. Things are going to change. We know that firsthand from this past school year where we were thrown into distance learning. So, of course, things are going to change. But if you have that baseline and that blueprint to help guide you, it's going to be totally worth it to spend some time either by yourself or maybe even grab your co-teacher or even your grade level team to curriculum map together. Jst lay the groundwork for what you want to cover and how you want to go about teaching the content to your students.
OK. We got the tough one out of the way. The other activities that I want you to prep and plan are going to be hopefully a little bit more fun and don't take as much mental energy.
The next thing that I want you to think about planning and prepping before the school year starts is your back to school activities. The problem that we run into here is that there are so many to choose from. Just take a quick glance at Pinterest and you will be flooded with so many ideas for back to school activities and crafts and projects. It doesn't matter what grade level you teach. There are so many to choose from. So my suggestion would be to give yourself a set amount of time that you're going to explore some ideas, maybe go to some of your favorite teacher blogs, or use things like Pinterest or social media, and give yourself a time limit for how long you're going to allow yourself to do some back to school activity exploration.
But here are some guidelines for things that you may want to keep in the back of your mind as you're exploring some back to school activities. You want to have something for students to complete on day one, right as they arrive in the classroom. You don't want students coming into the classroom and then just sitting at their desk waiting for the first activity that you are going to do as a whole class.
Have something very simple for them. So think about the age group of your students and what they might be able to handle and give them something very simple to do. It could be something like an "All About Me" poster. If you work with younger students, it could be a drawing activity. It should be something fun. You don't want to hit your students right away with something too academic, something that's inviting and that's going to give them something to do when they first come in.
Once you're ready to begin together as a whole class, you're going to want to have some activities that are going to keep kids moving and talking with one another. You don't want to spend your first couple of days of school talking to them, but rather let them do a lot of the talking and give them lots of opportunity to get up and move around. One of the activities that I always did with my students was called "Walk and Talk." I would prepare several cards that had just the standard getting-to-know-you questions on them that your students would be interested in hearing from each other and sharing about themselves. These could include questions like: 'What's your favorite band? What's your hobby? If you could play any instrument, what would you play?' -- simple questions that don't require a lot of thinking and don't get too personal, since this is something that you're going to be doing right away with your students.
You will provide each student with a card, with a question on it. Then they will get up and walk and find another partner in the classroom to ask their question to. And then their partner will ask the question on their card and they'll share their answers. Then, students swap cards and take their new card and find a new partner. And you can do this for as long as time allows. But it's just a fun way for students to get to know their classmates and to walk around and keep moving on those first couple of days of school.
So that leads me into my next type of activity that you want to include. In addition to activities that get students up and moving, you want to include plenty of activities that are going to build community right from the start. So the walk and talk activity that I just mentioned is definitely one of those activities that not only gets them up and moving, but also gets them to know each other and to start building that classroom community that you really want to establish right from the beginning.
You can also do a simple activity like M&M introductions. And how this works is you give each student a small baggie of M&Ms, one of each color. Then you put students into small groups and they go around picking one color of M&M out of their bag. Each color represents something that they need to share about themselves. So, for example, if a student picks out a red M&M, they might share their favorite sport. And you can, of course, come up with whatever you want each color to represent based on the age group of your students and things that you think they might find interesting.
And lastly, here's a bonus tip. When it comes to planning and prepping your back to school activities, plan a craft or project that will double as an open house or family night display later on in the month, or whenever you have open house with your students and their families. I always had my students create an "All About Me" poster on the first few days of school, and then I would use those posters to create a display in our classroom. It was super easy to do and it didn't take much planning at all.
We also have several freebies and resources inside the Getting Your Year in Gear teacher challenge that you can use as well. So make sure you sign up for that challenge, if you haven't already. I also have a blog post that I will link to in the show notes that has links to activities for grades K-6. There's a variety of activities there that you can choose from and I will link to that in the show notes.
But remember, you're only going to give yourself a certain amount of time to explore ideas. You're going to pick them. You're going to prep them, and then you're going to move on.
And speaking of moving on, another thing that you can prep and plan ahead of time before the school year starts is choosing the books that you want to read aloud to your students on your first day of school and first couple of days. No matter what grade you teach, you should include some sort of read aloud. Students need to be hearing reading right from the start. And so you want to choose a book that's going to be a big hit. I would suggest choosing a book that's going to promote building a strong community, because that's something that's really important that you're going to want to stress right from the beginning.
And I have two resources that may be of assistance in helping you choose that first book or two or that first chapter book read aloud. I have a blog post about five chapter books that every upper elementary teacher should have in their classroom library and I also have a blog post where I curated several popular book titles that promote diversity and inclusivity in the classroom. And I will link to both of those resources in the show notes at classroomnook.com/podcast/24
All right. Let's keep moving. If you do nothing else to plan and prep for the new school year, there is one thing that should be at the top of your list, and that is developing a plan for teaching routines and procedures. If there are two words that come out of my mouth more often than not those first few weeks of school, it would be "routine" and "procedure." Those two words can set the foundation and the tone for your whole school year. Without them, you are going to be backtracking for the rest of the year. Your routines and procedures are the first major component of a solid classroom management system. And I have a whole episode planned in just a few weeks where I'm going to dive deep into routines and procedures. But I want to mention it now as you are thinking about those systems and things that you want to plan before the school year starts. I want routines and procedures to be on your list. In fact, one of the very first things I do on day one would be to introduce a simple t-chart that I titled my "looks like/sounds like" chart. My students got very used to seeing this t-chart. I mean, really used to it, like they could probably see it in their sleep. That's how much I referred to our looks like and sounds like chart. When I wanted to teach students about how to gather at the gathering area, I would use a looks like/sounds like chart to teach what coming to the carpet should look like and what it should sound like.
I'd first have students tell me what they thought it should look like and sound like when coming to the carpet. We chart up appropriate responses and then I would add my own must-haves to the chart as well. Then, we would practice it over and over and over.
How do we line up for lunch? Bust that looks like/sounds like chart. How do we do small group centers? Bust that looks like/sounds like chart out. What about independent working? Any guesses? You got it. Make a looks like/sounds like chart. I always used this format so that students would know what to expect. I would use it year round - anytime my students would be doing something new or a new type of activity. By starting my year off with this, it came as no surprise that we would be doing a looks like/sounds like chart.
One of the biggest mistakes that I made as a new teacher was assuming that my students would know how to do something. I thought, 'hey, I've got fourth graders. They're gonna know how to come to the carpet. They're gonna know how to put their pencils away. They're gonna know what it looks like to come into the classroom.' But after a long summer of having little to no structure, students are going to need a refresher. And not only that, you are a new teacher to them. So your expectations are going to look different than their previous teachers. So when in doubt, you need to explicitly teach your rules and expectations.
Now, when I say that I had a routine and procedure for everything, I mean EVERYTHING! You could not be more detailed when it comes to routines and procedures. I had routines and procedures for behavioral expectations - things like what it looks like to arrive in the classroom, how to pack up and get ready to go home, dismissal and bus time, noise levels for different activities during the day, snack time, and so much more. I had routines and procedures for how to be working - whether they were working in small groups or independently or in partners, or how to perform their classroom jobs or how to keep their desks organized. We had routines and procedures that we would explicitly teach for how to use our classroom supplies - how to collect them and put them back away again. Routines for how to use the computers, how to use our classroom library books, when it was appropriate to sharpen pencils. And then we also had routines and procedures for transitional and movement activities. Things like how to line up, how to walk in the line, what I expect of them at fire drills or emergencies, and so on.
Now, if this sounds overwhelming and of course, you can't remember all of the things that I just mentioned, I do have a freebie that has all of these in a checklist so that you can be sure to not miss a single routine and procedure. I will link to that freebie in the show notes so that you can grab it and make sure that you cover all of your bases.
All right. One last thing that I want you to add to your list of things to prepare and plan for before the school year starts are some classroom activities and systems that you're going to prep now so that you don't have to worry about them later. And in doing this, you're going to save yourself a ton of time during the school year. There's going to be no more last minute, flying by the seat of your pants, planning and scrambling. The first thing that you want to have ready and prepped and plan before the school year starts are a class set of student birthday gifts. Now, if you don't do birthday gifts for your students, then you can skip this step. But if you do do something simple for your students, you want to go ahead and just take an evening and put all those gifts together. There's nothing worse than having a student walk into your classroom excited that it's his or her birthday, and dun dun dun, you forgot and you don't have anything ready. Now you're left ransacking your classroom cupboards looking for something that you can pass off as a birthday gift. Hey, I've been there. There's no judgment. But wouldn't it be nice if you had a neat little box tucked up nicely inside a cupboard somewhere filled with all your student birthday gifts and they're just ready to go? You've already taken the time to prep them and they're sitting and waiting for you. When a student comes in on their birthday and you have them ready at a moment's notice. And if it's slipped your mind that it's a student's birthday, no one has to know. I promise I won't tell. So whether that's a fun little pencil that you give them or you let them choose a book from a box of books that you've curated and put together, prep those now and have them ready to go.
Another system that you want to have prepped and planned is your plan for parent communication. You know the story. It's the last five minutes of the day and you're frantically trying to write down several notes in your students' communication folders or agendas or whatever you use to send home every day. One kid needs a reminder about a parent teacher conference tomorrow. Another one needs a reminder about bringing a library book back. And tomorrow's picture day. Don't forget, you want to remind parents about that, too.
It you have a system already set in place, then you don't even have to think about that. In fact, there's a really simple way that you can have some parent communication notes ready to go and grab them when you need them. All you need to do is prep some standard reminder communication cards that you can easily staple onto a page in an agenda or slip into a communication folder that you can give your students to take home to their parents. Your cards might just include some generic text, such as "Reminder: We have a conference scheduled for _____ at _____. See you then!" And all you have to do is write in the date and the time.
Here's some other things that you might want to have some cards ready to go for: Like I mentioned, parent teacher conferences, a short little note that you can send home about state tests or early dismissals, school picture day fundraisers, field trips, report cards coming home, any school supplies that you might need to have parents send in, open house reminders, project due dates, book orders, special class parties, specific days that you are celebrating at school like Field Day or the science fair or an awards ceremony, missing homework assignments, and times that you might need volunteer helpers to come into your classroom. And then what you'll do is make several copies of each reminder card and you can store them in a pocket chart somewhere in your classroom or even any other system that may work for you if you don't have space for an entire pocket chart.And then when you need a reminder, you just go into your already planned out cards and pull out what you need and you're good to go.
Now, I have a list of all of these, as well as some examples in a resource over on the website. And I will link to that in the show notes. Also, if you are a part of the Getting Your Year in Gear teacher challenge, you have a freebie sample set of those communication cards in theme three. So make sure you go and check those out and print them out and you basically have that step already taken care of for you.
Another system that you can have prepared and planned for before the school year starts are some "fast finisher" activities. These are those activities that students can complete if they finish a whole class assignment before the rest of their classmates and they need something to do to keep them engaged and working while the rest of their classmates finish up. These should be activities that don't require additional instruction from you because you want students to be able to get up out of their seat, grab the activity and work on their own, without much help from you. These activities might include choice boards that you let them pick activities from, a set of individual math games or literacy activities that they can complete at their seat, a set of writing prompts that they might be able to pick from - anything that students can complete in a few minutes and be able to do relatively easily on their own.
All right. You still with me? Let's keep going. You want to prepare ahead of time your sub-tub or folder for any substitute that might come in your class at a last minute notice. If you wake up sick one morning, the last thing that you want to be worrying about is putting together sub plans. That's why preparing a tub, binder, or folder with some ready-to-go materials for any last minute sub is essential. If you have this system in place before the school year starts, all you'll need to focus on is getting better on those days that you are sick. Or it will be just one less thing to think about even when you do have a planned absence.
I have a huge list of things that you may want to include in your sub tub or folder, and I have a resource that I will link to in the show notes, along with a lot of the other things that I've been talking about to prepare ahead of time before the school year starts. But, just to give you a few quick examples, you're going to want to include things like your daily schedule, a list of helpful staff members that the sub can reach out to, behavior management plans that you use in your classroom, a list of special needs for individual students and, of course, your detailed plans for the day.
And if you have a set of activities that you can use at any time during the school year, you don't have to worry about putting those last minute plans together. I've got even more ideas for things to include in your sub tub in the resource that I will link to in the show notes. So make sure you check that out.
And finally, I mentioned this last week in Episode 23, but it's worth mentioning again that you want to prepare ahead of time your student data binders. This is going to be that binder that you include information of all of your students for lists of services that they receive, communication that you've had with their families, any documentation that you are going to keep about them, their learning progress, things like that. So I will link to that resource on how to set up a student data binder in the show notes again this week. It comes with a free starter kit, so if that's of some interest to you make sure you head to the show notes and check that out.
Phew! OK. I feel like I need a deep breath. I threw a lot of information out at you and I know that we covered so much and hopefully you've been able to take some notes.
But if you want to just go to one place where I have every link that I've talked about and every resource that I mentioned in this episode. Just head to the show notes at classroomnook.com/podcast/24. And I promise everything that we've talked about will be there for you. And you can refresh your memory of some of these things that you want to plan and prepare before the school year starts.
But let me just give you a quick rundown before we end our time together today. You're definitely going to want to spend some time curriculum mapping either by yourself or with a co-teacher or your grade level team and planning out what your year is tentatively going to look like as far as the lessons and the units that you're going to want to cover with your students. You're also going to want to plan and prepare some back to school activities - things that are going to help your students get to know each other and get them up and moving in your classroom on those first few days of school. You want to pick out your back to school read-aloud books that you're going to share with your students. And preferably those books are going to be ones that promote diversity and a positive classroom community.
Next, you're going to make a plan for what your routines and procedures. Things like those behavioral routines and procedures, working routines and procedures, how you want your students to use and treat your classroom supplies, and your routines and procedures for transitional and movement expectations.
And finally, you will thank yourself so much later if you prep and plan some systems that you will use over and over again in the school year. Things like creating a class set of birthday gifts for your students, putting together a sub tub so you're prepared for any unexpected absences, and fast finisher activities. You're going to develop your system for communicating with parents and you want to prep your student data binder before the school year starts.
Now, if you're hearing all of this and feeling slightly overwhelmed, then myself and my good friend Mary Beth have got you covered with the Getting Your Year in Gear teachers summer challenge that's going on right now. It's a completely free challenge and it just takes everything that I've been talking about in the past few weeks, and we'll continue to do so in the next couple weeks, and it breaks it down into manageable chunks so that you're not left thinking, "Where do I begin? And what should I be doing to best prepare for a new school year?"
So if that sounds good, you make sure you get on board with this teacher challenge. I will have a link to how to get started and signed up in the show notes at classroomnook.com/podcast/24
Listen, friends, we are in this together and I cannot wait to connect with you again next week on another episode of The Classroom Commute Podcast. Bye for now.
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