Do you long-range plan? Quarter plan? Backward plan? Scope and Sequence? Curriculum map? For my first few years of teaching I honestly never did long-range planning but I saw first hand what a game changer it really is! Unit planning is one of my biggest reasons for success, even as I change grades. By starting the school year with a map of my year, I know where I’m going, when I’m going there and the reason behind it all.
What is long-range planning?
Long Range Planning is creating a plan (duh) for the year. The trick to making this is to think ahead of what you are teaching and I find this easiest to do in the summer. Long-Range Planning is also known as unit planning, scope & sequence, quarter planning, curriculum mapping or backwards planning. No matter what you call it, they all give you a road-map of your school year.
I sit down during summer and take a peak at either my district scope and sequence or my state standards depending on what’s available. I read through, high light important topics and major standards. Helpful resources include this for math, and this for literacy as well as your state’s standards.
After reading the standards, I’m able to pick out clear learning targets of the grade level. I can start to group these targets/standards into units. I will also reference a textbook if I have one to make sure that I’m not missing anything or to flesh out any standards. My document looks something like this when I’m done.
When to Curriculum Map
I typically long-range plan during the summer for at least the first semester. This sets me up for a successful 1st half of the year and makes planning later on a breeze. Ideally I roughly map out the whole year so that I always know what is coming next. It might be helpful to sit down as a team or department to work on this task.
When will I teach all the units? I roughly map out each quarter by week and start to insert my units (using this FREEBIE). For units with more major standards I know I will spend more time on and for units with minor standards I might teach fairly quickly. I divide the quarter up for my units, typically in 2-3 week chunks. This gives me an overview of each quarter without nailing down the nitty gritty details (that can honestly get overwhelming!). If you are looking for a more deep dive look into planning, check out my tips here.
Why should you make a Scope & Sequence?
It is so much easier to direct a ship when you as the captain know where you need to go! Long-range planning gives you that map to help guide your year, as well as keep you on track! You don’t want to spend 6 weeks on 1 unit if your time could have been used in a better way.
Depending on the district, a scope and sequence might already be created for you. If that is the case, looking over the amount of time spent on different units or standards is still helpful! Get familiar with this tool! I would pencil in all of the dates on the monthly calendar view in my planner. This was it was easy access for planning, without getting in the way of my actual daily plans.
Do you make a scope and sequence or long-range plan your year? Want to start by using this freebie?!
[…] common plan time. Having it as a reference tool to use from year to year is helpful when creating a long-range plan and to prepare lesson plans faster and […]