If You Struggle With Lesson Planning as a Teacher WATCH THIS

would be willing to bet that you clicked on this video because some part of you even if that part is super small and really deep down dreads lesson planning maybe you feel like it takes too long or every time you sit down to lesson plan you find yourself in some deep Rabbit Hole online searching for ideas but getting nothing done now I'm going to have to go online and look at Turtles regardless of your reasoning it's okay I'm here to help in today's video I'm going to share with you my top secret for making your lesson planning not only easier but also much faster don't know if you're old enough to remember cliff notes or if they even still make Cliff Notes kind of hope they do but we are going to be creating cliff notes version for our lesson plans something like this where it is one pager although it can really go on to multiple pages with all of your materials and activities and ideas in one place that way when you sit down to lesson plan you are pulling from everything you already have rather than trying to recreate it from scratch or remember what you have stored in some random digital file or filing cabinet and you can't remember what's in there I'm going to be using Google Docs and in fact this template you see is freebie I've created for you on my website the link for that will be down in the description box really like using Google docs for this because it will easily expand onto multiple pages if needed but feel free to recreate this in any other program of your choosing and before we jump into it just want to clarify this is meant to be used digitally however it can be printed we are actually going to be adding in links to files which is why it's best used digitally but if you would rather have paper copy you can totally print it out so one of the first things we're going to do is just change the title for this example we're going to do measurement conversions unit overview and I'm just going to delete the word template I'm going to also change my unit title up here at the top to measurement conversions and this is meant for fourth grade so I'm going to change that to Fourth this is obviously math unit and for the time frame you're really looking at how long would have to teach this unit and that will vary from unit to unit and even subject to subject but just as an example let's do 10 days now I'm going to fill in my standard now always taught using come and core standards so this one would be for MDA A.1 and for MDA a.2 now I'm going to add in some objectives these would be those student friendly phrases that represent what we're going to cover over the course of 10 days even though this is only two standards I'm going to have much more than two objectives because each standard is actually made up of several different things my students need to know how to to do if you struggle with writing objectives you can find resources online where they will break down the standards into possible objective so I'm just going to go ahead and fill in few can understand relative sizes of measurement within one system and I'm just going to keep going okay so for this unit my objectives would be can understand relative sizes of measurement within one system can convert measurements into other units can determine measurement equivalencies and record them in table can solve variety of word problems involving distance mass weight capacity time and money along with can represent measurement amounts using number lines and diagrams now I'm going to fill in the vocabulary words for this unit I'm going to put everything that's related to this unit may not exclusively teach all of these words but they are vocabulary terms my students need to be familiar with the word no not even in her vocabulary some of them might have displayed on bulletin board other ones will just kind of be used as I'm teaching the lessons but I'm just going to brain dump them all in one place and me being me I'm going to put them in alphabetical order okay that's good enough start the great thing about having something like this digitally is that you can always go in and add to it if while you're actually planning the unit you come up with more ideas or you've noticed that your students are struggling with certain term you can always come back and add it in next we're moving on to materials almost think about this as just an inventory for what have available I'm not necessarily going to use every single one of these materials but it's just something can kind of pull from when might need ideas and like to have it separated between physical materials that would have to dig through cabinets in my classroom for as well as digital materials that have stored on my computer or in my Google Drive as files now some of these especially the physical materials I'm just cre creating list for the digital ones want to actually link the files that way it's super easy for me to access them when the time comes so I'm going to start by filling in my physical materials and then will show you how to link to specific digital materials okay so for physical materials around measurement conver versions obviously have those vocabulary cards which will display on bulletin board would have you know rulers meter sticks yard sticks tape measures had those capacity containers like the big gallon jug scales mini clocks plastic coins and then did have few books related to measurement and measurement conversions as well and want to make sure list those I'm not necessarily going to use all three books but at least they're there in case need them moving on to the Dig digal materials y'all know love to teach from slides and so would create set of Google slides for each unit taught and it would have all the slides need for the entire unit want to make sure link to those slides so that it's super easy to open them when need them so could type the title of the slide and create hyperlink or within Google Docs this is newer feature can create chip so I'm going to type the at sign and I'm going to start to type the title of that file so have it called measurement conversion slides right there I'm going to click it and it now has linked to those slides if hover over it with my mouse will actually see this preview of the slides and can see some of the information and can even click open preview and it will open larger version of it so can click through the slides and take look at them which is super convenient when I'm actually planning so I'm now just going to repeat this process for some of the other other files that have so now want to list websites for some digital manipulatives that my students might use if they're completing digital assignments but because these are not file in my Google Drive can't add chip but can add hyperlink so in in order to add hyperlink I'm going to highlight the text want to be linked I'm going to rightclick I'm going to scroll down and select insert link and I'm going to paste the link so I've already opened these up in other tabs I'm just going to copy that URL come back to the Google Doc I'm going to paste it and then click apply so now can click on it and it will show me that link and from here can click and it will open up that link so I'm just going to repeat that for each of these so in addition to those digital manipulatives also linked to Study Jams activity on Scholastic there are also lot of YouTube videos would use for this unit so what I'm going to do is type the title so for example metric system conversion song and I'm going to link it to those YouTube videos I'm going to insert link come over to YouTube copy the link paste it and apply once again it will open up that preview and can just click to go to it so I'm going to repeat that process for each of the videos that would want to have linked that's good enough for now for my materials again can continually add to this but moving on to activities and assessments now this temp is editable so if you would rather group Assessments in with activities you can always rename this to be whatever you would like but I'm actually going to start with assessments cuz feel like there's not as much when it comes to assessments versus activities but know that have measurement conversions preassessment that would give before the unit starts have exit tickets and again if those are in like Google doc or Google Slides file can link directly to them have measurement conversions quiz and then the quarterly assessment that my students would take moving on to activities most of these are going to be linked to specific files have on my computer so for example one that have is called what's being measured and it's PDF file but can still link to it so I'm going to put that in there have length scavenger hunt which technically that's just like paper copy that had didn't have it digitally now technically could put that under physical materials but would rather not have things in multiple places so since that is its own activity I'm going to put it under activities instead of physical materials hopefully that makes sense then also had memory game and the kingdom of gallon Kingdom of gallon that's also PDF that can link to cuz it's in my Google Drive there's the Gallon Man activity that was just paper copies that had task cards those were in my closet then had the rock paper scissors paper Okay so this was just an activity that students could do in Partners I'll open up the preview so you can see it so they would be racing each other they would do rock paper scissors whoever wins gets to move up their side and they have to complete that measurement conversion popper paloa which is just PDF file this was using those poppers from like the target Dollar spot they would Pop the ball and then measure how far it went and convert it to the different measurements and then had the case of the melted snowman so this is where they had to convert all the different units so they had to find the length of the arms the mass of the carrot from the nose and then the capacity of the water and that was digital file that had and then had trasc ball review trasc ball measurement conversions so this would be game we would do at the end of the unit before they take their quiz if you are interested in the trasc ball template that you can use to create your own games will link that for you down below as well as my slide templates like what have here where they're all linked together that will be down in the description box now we are moving on to differentiation strategies I'm not going to list out every differentiation strategy under the sun because lot of them work for any subject area or any skill or topic want to focus on differentiation strategies that are more specific to this unit so for example might have students measure out each unit using physical tools or containers with different units and comparing so might pull students into small group and literally give them the physical like gallon and Pints and all that and have them measure it out in order to compare would also have them work on estimating which unit would be best for real life examples so having them think about if I'm measuring how much water is in pool would it make more sense to use you know liters or milliliters things like that would also have them draw models to generalize conversions which that would be used lot in math but want to make sure have it on here as an idea creating tables to notice patterns especially with like skip counting horse to fly and fly to horse so this was one of my favorites if you don't know this basically horse represents larger unit and fly represents smaller unit so would have them say horse to fly multiply and then fly to horse divide of course with that also had them do hand motion so it would be horse cuz your arms are open big to fly multiply your arms kind of make multiplication sign and then fly to horse this one's little bit of stretch but it's almost like division sign like your arms are the middle line and your head and like your feet can be the little dots it worked for some students would have them use manipulatives for solving conversions using the four operations and keep in mind none of these are linked to anything they're just ideas so if have student struggling could look at this and go what can do it just helps to have it all in one place know Splash learn also has some activities Al along with KH Academy and those can actually link to so let me get that done okay so now we're moving on to some of those connections and like to think about it as how can connect this to other subject areas so cross-curricular connections you have that connection as well as real world connections again may not use every single one of these when I'm teaching this unit it's just ideas to kind of pull from so starting with cross-curricular I'm going to kind of break it up by each subject area so for ELA would tell them the kingdom of gallon story and then had those books so how big is foot the metric system and millions to measure and then also like to have students write their own Story So based on those books that would read them good early finisher option would be to have them write their own kind of children's story picture book around the topic of measurement conversions for science mean science is easy cuz you use measurements measurements in experiments would typically take them on trip to the science lab and have them look at like the graduated cylinders and the different measuring tools in there for social studies we can hit on the history of the metric system as well as the history of the customary system and then think fun activity would be identifying which countries use which systems okay that's good enough for that for real world connections again this is just to get my brain kind of flowing always like to do comparisons for each unit so creating almost like benchmark for them of when you think about an inch here are things that are about an inch long when you think about foot here are things that are about foot long so then would always bring in like the cafeteria milk jugs and use those cuz my students were super familiar with those recipes are fun to look at for this grocery store ads like the circulars that you get you can look at the different measurements for things also the scales at the grocery store when you measure like your fruit and things like that and then would typically have them do like scavenger hunt of examples around the school trying to find real world connections so now we are on to the lesson progression now I'm just going to warn you with this you can get as detailed as you want you could write out your full lesson descriptions in this area you could could link to formal lesson plans that you have so for example if had this full lesson plan on measurement conversions like let's say this was lesson one of the unit could actually link to that here so could highlight lesson one and could insert the link and it's unit 5 lesson 1 and it will be able to pull that up here but I'll be honest how typically use this was just kind of an overview of what I'm going to cover in that lesson would actually detail it out in those slides that mentioned earlier so for this it was just kind of deciding for those 10 days what am covering each day and personally always start at the end so if know that last day is going to be an assessment the day before is probably going to be review and then from there have 8 days left in order to cover those different objectives so for example day one might be an overview of length mass and weight and capacity just kind of if you're measuring this is that length mass or capacity then moving on to lesson two would be an introduction to the metric system and we would probably go ahead and cover length mass and capacity in that lesson because with the metric system and those abbreviations those prefixes it makes it much easier to cover them all at once then we're going to going to work on converting within the metric system and again that's going to be length mass and capacity so converting between units then would probably move on to introduction to the customary system and would probably just do length and weight in the same day and would have separate day for capacity cuz it's more involved so introduction to the customary system for capacity and then would have converting within the customary system and that would be for all of them so length weight and capacity then day seven or lesson would focus on solving word problems with measurement conversions and would have two days of that so I'm just going to copy that and put it here as well and put continued okay so that gives me an idea of what I'm covering for each of those 10 days that allotted for this unit then the notes section this is great place to keep track of maybe ideas that you have things you've seen other teachers do or things you've learned from teaching this unit in the past obviously if you're brand new teacher recommend taking notes as you're teaching the unit what's working what's not but if you're veteran teacher and you've taught this before you already know some of those misconceptions students are going to have and the areas they're going to struggle along the way so this is place just to keep track of that so from my experience know that it's best to start with the metric system rather than the customary system because the prefixes carry over between units know that students need to know benchmarks for each unit like they need to know real life object that's about that size or weight know that the standard does not differ iate between mass and weight so technically with the metric system it is mass and with the customary system it is weight I'm going to explain if needed like if my students are curious will go into detail otherwise not really necessary and then also know that need to highlight the difference between fluid ounces and ounces because my students would kind of get confused between those and once again can add to this as go so now have this unit overview and when it is time to plan my lessons can open this up I've already got my objectives already know what materials have to pull from have ideas of activities have ideas for differentiation have that lesson progression yes this can be little bit timec consuming to set up from the beginning many small time make big time but it's one of those things that your future self will thank you for because because it makes your life so much easier so if this is something new to you suggest just take it one unit at time don't sit down and try to do this for every unit for the entire year it will be overwhelming but as you go along create this use that free template which is link for you down in the description box you can customize it however you needed but trust me once you have this set up it makes your life so much easier also have video coming where will share how to organize all of your materials for specific specific unit within your Google drive but if you enjoyed this video please give it thumbs up go ahead and hit that subscribe button and the notification Bell so you don't miss any future videos as always thank you for watching love you so much don't forget to put your positive pants on and will catch you in the next one