LONG-TERM PLANNING
My long-term plans must be designed to push my students into making academic gains but also take into account the developmental differences and learning styles of all students. When looking for an effective way to achieve important educational goals, I must take into account standards and assessments. Standards provide me with the basis of what my students are expected to learn over the course of a school year. Planning for these standards allows me to use my creativity, experience, and knowledge to design instruction that will lead my student to the desired learning outcomes included in each standard.
My first step in planning every year is by looking at the district’s curriculum and calendar. When scheduling units, I pay close attention to what makes sense to teach each month. For example, at the being of the school year, it makes sense for me to read stories that are about starting school during group literacy. This then carries over into social students because we spend the month talking about classroom behaviors. Once again I use the theme of beginning school to help us in math. We count how many letters are in each name in our classroom.
Long-Term Plan – Kindergarten Mathematics
Planning units to be interconnected helps my students see how our learning will spread to all parts of their environment and life. We will often count words in a sentence during our literacy unit, or sequence the life cycle of a pumpkin before we learn to sequence a story. These are ways that I help provide my students with opportunities to interact with standards frequently and spiral them throughout the school year.
Creating a long-term plan helps me consider the limited number of instructional days I have with my students and create a roadmap for all the learning I want my students to achieve.
Year at a Glance
I start long-term planning each year by dividing all curriculum and content into theme units. I align my Year at a Glance to the academic calendar to make sure that I consider the best time to properly introduce students to each themed unit. I make sure students have access to real-world connections by planning ahead for field trips and in school events.
Long-Term Plan – Kindergarten Mathematics
This is a long-term plan I created for teaching kindergarten math. I use common core standards and Eureka Math Curriculum to outline a successful yearlong math plan. Lessons are grouped based on standards.
When long-term planning, I first look at the End of the Year Assessment. This assessment helps me understand what the district deems important for students to achieve by the end of the year. I then consider what is developmentally appropriate for my students to grasp. I use the curriculum as a guide for my yearlong lesson plan but remove lessons and units that I believe will not help my students be successful.
Standards are taught in both a chunked and spiraled style throughout the units and school year. This is intentional. Instead of teaching addition in October and hoping that my students will remember it on the end of the year assessment, I touch on addition continuously throughout the year because it is one of the biggest concepts students are expected to understand. This provides my students with multiple opportunities to be successful in learn and gives me a chance to re-teach concepts as needed.
I feel it is important to spend a month at the end of the school year to review concepts. Students may not completely understand a concept the first time around, but spiraling it into learning throughout the school year and re-teaching a standard again in a small group setting at the end of the year once students have had time to develop will certainly help put them on the right path.