Hello Readers! So now that I am a working mom, I’ve been trying to find ways to work smarter, not harder. One area where I know that I was spending too much time was getting my lessons planned for the year. I’d spend hours during the summer planning out what I was going to do the following year. But I knew there had to be a better way. Especially because I use a spreadsheet and have the ability to cut and paste lessons from one year to the next. (Aside: don’t get me wrong, I don’t do the exact same thing every year, but there are activities that I do use year after year, and yet I felt like I was having to rewrite them each year).
Plan As You Go
Another problem that I would run into while planning was that I would sort of forget what things did and didn’t work that well, because it was now summer time and the beginning of the school year was a looooong time ago. So, here is my new system. At the end of each week, I take a look at the lesson I’ve done and what worked or didn’t work, and then I plug in what I want to keep into next year’s planning grid right then and there, So that’s like 10 minutes once a week. Not a huge time commitment! Let me show you kind of how it works.
Let’s say I’ve just finished week #1 of quarter 4. Bongo Bong (a song from World Playground CD) and Pony Bill worked really well, but Jump Over the Ocean was just okay and I’d like to try something different next year. So I’d copy and paste week one to my next year planning sheet, but I’d delete Jump Over the Ocean.
Quick Edits
As the weeks progress, I will add the activities that I like and delete those I don’t like. Or maybe change the order that I present things or push things forward or back a week. Whatever needs doing. And it is just a matter of cut and paste in each grade level. Each edit taking a matter of seconds.
Then, all I need to do during the summer is to fill in the spots where I took stuff out and don’t have an idea yet of what I’d like to put in. And of course sometimes as you add things you may need to make small tweaks to other parts of the plan.
But the majority of the work is done in advance, right after I finished the lesson, so I remember clearly what worked really well, and what didn’t. I’m looking forward to having more free time to get all the other million things done that teachers always have lined up. The more time I have, the more I can be proactive in other areas as well so I can be a PROactive instead of a REactive teacher and not be scrambling.
Revamp Your Lesson Planning Process
Want to take your lesson planning to the next level? Check out my post on Lesson Planning for Elementary Music: 10 Crucial Things You Are Forgetting to Add To Your Lessons. I’ll walk you through all the things you’ll want to include in your lessons, as well as the why and even give you a free workbook to get you started in your planning!
