EP. 112 Summer Lesson Plan Strategies

Welcome educators! Before we get started I want to share with you an amazing free tool I have available to you. It is “The Ultimate Guide to a Successful School Year”. In this guide, I walk you through how you can take those nervous jitters to have undeniable confidence throughout the school year. All because you started with these basic steps in the guide. To download the guide go tmyadventuresinesl.com/ultimateguide.

We are going to start off today’s episode with your reflection question. 

• What are some simple things you can do this summer to prepare your lessons for the upcoming school year?

Take a moment to reflect on this question. Think about this question and answer yourself honestly about where you stand.

The problem with planning over the summer is that the summer is your time to decompress and be productive. We use the summer to disconnect and gain fuel for the upcoming school year. The last thing that many of us want to do is plan for the upcoming year. 

This was me the last couple of summers. I used the time in the summer just to reset. I did very little in regards to planning. I am here to tell you that I felt the effects when I started the school year. Especially since there were summers where I did spend some time to plan for the upcoming school year. When the school year started after not spending just a little time planning, I felt very rushed and scatterbrained. I decided that this summer I would spend some time planning for the upcoming school year.  

This summer I am being intentional about planning and decompressing for the upcoming school year. I realized that I can do both! Even if I am spending 15 minutes a day planning, those small steps will add up over the summer. Let me share with you my lesson planning strategies that I am using this summer. 

Summer Lesson Planning Strategy #1: Think about your planning goals for the summer and set aside time to commit to those goals. For example, 3 weeks before school starts I plan on setting aside 1 hour a day to plan for the upcoming school year. This time will include professional development and developing my lessons. Your commitment can be 15 minutes a day or 30 minutes a day. You can even commit to 10 minutes a day. Whatever you decide to commit to, write it down and put it on your calendar. Do whatever you need to do to stay consistent. 

Summer Lesson Planning Strategy #2: Create a year-long curriculum guide with dates to help you plan throughout the year. I did this last summer and it was a game changer for the school year. I have a free one available to you if you want to use mine. This does not have to be a complicated outline of what you want to teach. You can keep it simple by adding a topic and dates. Here is a link to a free curriculum outline for the school year. 

Summer Lesson Planning Strategy #3: Reflect on previous lessons that your students enjoyed and decide on how you can improve those lessons. In my case, my students loved playing games such Gimkit and Kahoot. This year I am going to add those activities into my lessons. You can also analyze the lessons that did not go well to determine how you make those lessons better. 

Think about how you are going to use your time this summer to decompress and relax. Plan the time you need to do this if necessary. Use that time to stay away from any school related activities. 

Then start taking small steps to plan for the school year. 

How do you plan on using 15 minutes a day to plan for the school year?

You can find the transcript here.