When you actually sit and look at the order in which you teach your lessons, you may find that you weren’t as purposeful as you would have hoped.  Well at least, this is what happened to me.  I figured if it happened to me, it must have happened to somebody else, right? 

When you go to order your lessons, it’s important that the order of your lessons provides flow.  What I mean by flow is that the skills that your kids are learning are learning are building on each other from one day to the next. I accidentally created a theme to each of my semesters, making the flow much stronger.  After my lessons were streamlined, my kids were learning better because they were only being asked to recall things from a short period of time, and then slowly building on those initial concepts.   

The better you are at providing flow in your lessons the stronger your students will be, and the less time you will need to spend reteaching.  

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Numbering your lessons may be the most important part of your curriculum planning, and helping your classroom run.  Giving your course a coding system won’t just be beneficial to you either.  Numbering your lessons will help your students, parents, admin, guidance and team teachers. 

I use my coding system everywhere that I can. I number my lessons and put those codes on worksheets, notebook pages, lesson plans, unit plans etc.  You name it, there’s a number on it! By using a coding system, you can streamline your photocopies and get out of the copy room as soon as possible. 

My numbering system for my lessons has 7 major benefits

1. It outlines where I am in my curriculum and pacing
2. It forces me to create flow within my lessons and planning
3. Paperflow and photocopies aren’t stressful
4. Keeps my students organized
5. Parent communication is much clearer (this is especially true for more complex subjects that parents don’t use in their everyday lives, like chemistry)
6. Gradebook is much more organized and it’s easier for kids to make up work  
7. INBs take up less time  (If you’re interested in hearing more about My Unpopular Opinions about Interactive notebooks, you can read the post here. )

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Enduring Understandings are some of the best parts of my unit plans!  They can be a pain to figure out the first time around, for sure.  I know that the Enduring Understandings, or as I like to call them Big Ideas, are worth the work. 

Once you have your enduring understandings written, you’ve essentially outlined the things that your students will know by the end of the unit.  

I like to keep these at the top of my unit plans so they are super easy to see and they jump out easily. 

I take those enduring understandings and break them down into my lessons. 

Having the big ideas written out at the tippy top of the unit plans helps me to sequence my units and make sure that I’m teaching my units in the right order.   When the order gives you flow, you wind up saving time.  I also use the big ideas to keep my lessons in order because that’s another way to save time.  If you know anything about the All Star Planning Method, it’s all about saving time!

Want to learn more about the All Star Planning Method? Check out the free masterclass!

Has anyone ever told you that you need to write unit plans?  Has anyone ever told you HOW to write unit plans?  How about how to use unit plans to streamline your curriculum planning?  

What if I told you that having unit plans cut my lesson planning time in half (and then in half again)? Or that, by having unit plans, I was able to resequence my entire curriculum and give myself six weeks of time at the end of my school year for final exam review?

On today’s episode of the All Star Planning podcast you will learn

• the basics for writing a unit plan
• how your unit plans can help you to plan your lessons
• how your unit plans can help you to plan your course
• how sequencing your units can change the entire outlook of your course

Want to learn more about the All Star Planning Method? Check out the free masterclass!

Hey! Did you know that you can’t plan your entire curriculum calendar for the school year in one sitting? I’m telling you - it’s simply not possible.  But putting your school year on a calendar doesn’t have to be as daunting as you think it is! 

I live by my curriculum calendar! It has saved my tush in so many situations, I can’t even begin to recall them.  The big thing that I use them for is to keep me on schedule and looking at the long term and approaching the year as a whole. 

In this episode you will learn: 

• how to estimate the number of days that you actually teach, because it isn’t 180
• blocking out dates that you know won’t be teaching days
• how to actually get your curriculum and individual lessons planned out on to a calendar
• the benefits of scheduling your school year out on a calendar
• how to share the calendar with your students
• how to share the calendar with your students’ families

Want to learn more about the All Star Planning Method? Check out the free masterclass!

Welcome to the All Star Planning Podcast! In our first episode, I’m talking about your approach to your standards.  Every teacher deals with their standards differently.  I started out really stressed and overwhelmed by my standards.  I felt like I didn’t know how to read my standards.  Nobody ever taught me! All of the codes were confusing! Science standards, chemistry standards, interdisciplinary standards - I couldn’t keep up!

Because my student teaching experience was in a great school I simply copied what I learned when I had my own classroom.  I was teaching in a school, essentially by myself.  I was the only chemistry teacher there, so I couldn’t bounce ideas off of anybody.  It eventually caught up with me.  When I felt like I was drowning in my lesson plans I decided to go back to the basics and take a really hard look at my standards.  In a moment of frustration, I took a scissor to my standards and chopped them up into what felt like a million pieces. 

And that crazed moment gave me SO much clarity.  I looked at my standards as a giant to do list.   My standards became my goal, and in that my friends!  I learned to love my standards once I rearranged them and made them my own. 

Having a handle on my standards started to make my lesson planning so much easier!

Want to learn more about the All Star Planning Method? Check out the free masterclass.

If you are interested in what the All Star Planning Podcast is all about, you are starting in the right place.  You can learn about the formation of the All Star Planning Method and the beginning of my teaching journey. 

If you are interested in more All Star Planning content, be sure to check out my website, kelseyreavy.com or check out the Masterclass to learn the nitty gritty details about the All Star Planning Method.  Sign up at plan.kelseyreavy.com