Lesson Plans

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 On thing that I never learned in my teacher education program is how to do lesson plans. We had to do them, but weren't given any real guidance just told to do them. Hmmmm..... For 13 years I've struggled with this and I have finally come to the conclusion that I might be overthinking things. The chemistry and biology curriculum that I use comes with a teacher guide and I think I just need to use that as the basis for my units. I do that, but I need to be more organized about it. The notebook folks have included a unit planner and I think I'm gonna use that but just put in the general idea. So for example, when we return to school we will start a unit on substances; mixtures, pure substances, elements, and compounds. I think in the unit planner I will just put the general idea of what I want to do and then use the teacher guide for the details. That seems to make more sense since I default to the teacher guide all the time anyway. So I'm going to use the unit planner as the outline and the teacher guide for the nitty gritty. Okay, that makes a whole lot more sense. I'm going to get chemistry unit set up today and see how that will work out. Then in the unit guide I put in notebook days so that I will remember to include them. Also, I can list the homework in the unit guide so I will have it at my fingertips. Then in my binder I will put the unit guide on top so that I can reference what is coming, followed by the teacher guide, and then the worksheets, etc. That will allow me to look at the unit guide to see what is coming when and the teacher guide for the details. I think I might love this. Okay, the plan for today is to lay this out and see if it will work. I'm in. 

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