Often being a teacher means having to be flexible, organized, and able to prioritize. Your planning period should be approached in the same way as the rest of your day. Read on (or listen to the podcast) for how to make the most of your planning time.
Why Prioritization Matters
I don't know about you, but when I taught second grade I never knew which day I would actually have a prep period. It often disappeared on a moment's notice. When I did get one, I really had to make the most of my planning time.
One of the things I've learned from trying to grow my business is that when you have limited time it's important to maximize it. This means creating routines and structure so when I sit down to work I know what I'm working on.
We can apply these same ideas to the classroom. I love having a routine! For me, it made sense to create a focus for my planning period for each day of the week. You can read more about it in this post, Making the Most of Your Planning Period.
When we are intentional with our planning period, we become less overwhelmed. We know exactly what needs to be done and we can dive right in. Otherwise, we spend most of our time wondering what we should be doing and before we know it, it's time to pick up our class from specials.
Focus on Instructional Planning First
During those first few weeks of back to school, it can be really tempting to want to do things like organize the classroom supplies or decorate bulletin boards. Resist the urge! Things like this can wait. In fact, reduce the urge by hanging up papers that say "work in progress" or "student work loading." Not everything needs to be fully decorated immediately.
So what should you do instead? Well, I recommend putting your focus on your instructional lessons. Look over your units and see how you can break them up into smaller mini-lessons or if you need supplemental materials. Make a list as you look over the curriculum materials. Then, decide on a day where you'll look for the additional materials and pull them during that prep time.
Prep Materials for the Next Day or Week
I love choosing a day of the week (for me it was usually Fridays) to photocopy all my worksheets for the next week. In fact, I tried to always be two weeks ahead. If my plans needed to be adjusted, I would just move the copies to a different folder. It was that simple to adjust!
Batching certain tasks on a particular day of the week is also really helpful. For example, lesson planning on Mondays, grading on Tuesdays, filing and returning papers on Wednesdays, copying on Thursdays, and resetting centers on Fridays. Choose what works for you and don't be afraid to mix it up until you find the flow that is best.
Review Student Data to Guide Instruction
During the day you are working on grades, plan time to reflect on student work examples. This can be exit tickets, pre-assessments, or even running records. Have a blank class roster nearby to record data. Look for patterns in what students know and what they need more lessons on. Use this information when planning out your small groups or reteach lessons.
Plan for Differentiation
Consider how you’ll support struggling students or challenge high achievers. Make sure to add this into your plans during your prep time. For me, this means setting individual goals for students or looking for multiple students I can pull for quick 5 minute lessons as a small group.
Reviewing previously taught information are great to assign during center rotations. The more intentional you are with this, the more differentiated learning becomes for your students. It can be a simple as assigning different leveled worksheets from your curriculum.
Communicate with Parents or Colleagues
Reserve the last 5-10 minutes of your planning time to check and respond to emails or messages from parents or colleagues. If you find yourself repeating some of the same things, consider creating email responses in a Google doc that you can copy and paste into the email body to save yourself time.
Creating a weekly newsletter also can be a quick way to keep families informed. If you set up a template, it should only take a few minutes to write up the content each week and send home with students.
Leave Room for Flexibility
My last bit of advice for your teacher planning time is to leave some white space in your prep plans. This is a term I recently started hearing about and I love the idea. It means to have some room for unexpected changes or last minute interruptions to your planning period.
Planning doesn't mean scripting every minute. It means setting yourself up for success.