I used to struggle to plan activities for one day or one week
at a time. One day, I had an epiphany to
plan for a month at a time, and I couldn’t believe how “extra” time for my life after school suddenly opened up!
Choose one day to stay late at school (or spread it out over
two days so that you aren’t so late).
That’s only TEN days per YEAR compared to almost daily before I started
this plan. Look ahead at your curriculum
map, and note the concepts and skills you will be covering. The first thing I did each month was to get
my centers for literacy, math, and extension classes ready.
Wait a minute… Did I
just say centers?? (I know you are
thinking that those take a LONG time to prepare.) Yes, you are correct. They USED to take a long time to prep until I
realized I could make them mostly NO prep or extremely little prep with the
help of a couple of my most helpful students.
In my classroom, my students rotated to 1 center each day for
20-30 minutes per center. I needed five
centers for each week for four weeks.
That meant that I needed at least twenty centers for literacy, twenty
centers for math, and twenty centers for my extension classes. That was SIXTY centers. That would have taken a LONG time to
prepare. Well, it would have with my old way of thinking. Let me show you how it works.
In my NO PREP monthly series, there are 10 centers each month
with 2-3 bonus activities. (Read a blog post about them, and grab a freebie for your own classroom HERE.) Using these, I would need about ten additional centers for my
classroom. The good thing was that some
things in the classroom never changed, which made it so much easier to
plan. Look at your own classroom, and
decide what you can use almost all year without changing. Not only does this help with your planning,
but it is great for your students because they know exactly what to do at these
centers.
Here’s a list to choose from:
1) Technology – Some options here are Google
Classroom, online games, website research, BrainPop, YouTube videos with
comprehension questions, etc. I like to use these digital task cards for students to review and practice. With this endless bundle, you'll always have a NO PREP set ready to go at your fingertips!
2) Books – Give your students time to
read books…free choice books, assigned reading, math books, science books,
social studies books, etc. Just get them
reading. Don't forget to add books for your students that love geography such as an atlas.
3) Games – This is an absolute
favorite! Keep out that game of Trouble
or Sorry in both literacy and math centers.
Students are using reasoning, logic, reading, math, and so much more
when playing a board game.
4) Writing – Whether you assign a topic
or let students complete free choice writing activities, writing is so
important. Each student can keep a spiral
ring notebook for the entire year to write in.
Don’t be afraid to use writing in math also!
5) Puzzles – Keep a 1,000-piece puzzle
set up in the corner of your room for the entire month. Students love working on puzzles, and they
are a great critical thinking activity for the mind.
6) Teacher Center – Make yourself a
center each week. Use this time to work with
small groups.
7) Reader’s Theater or Book Club – Have
a small group of students work on fluency, oral reading, comprehension skills,
and more as they read together.
8) Partner Activity – There are so many
things you have in your classroom when you look around that will make perfect
activities for two students to complete together. What about something you love but that is not
large enough for more than a couple of students to use? This is a perfect time to put two or three of
those out for the month.
9) STEM – Prepare some STEM containers
with tasks that students can work on either individually, with partners, or in
small groups. They can be as simple as
ice pop sticks in a pencil box with instructions like “Build a bridge.” written
on an index card.
10) Task Cards – Use task cards spread throughout your
classroom for a fun scavenger
hunt.
I hope this list has inspired you to look in your classroom
at what you already have on hand in your cabinets and shelves to help you think
about how you can implement those items into your classroom immediately for
month-long centers to help make lesson planning easier.
Working smarter, not harder, that’s just…
My Kind of Teaching
