With school fast approaching…I’m getting excited for 2 new classes full of bright happy faces of 3-4 year-old, and my pre-k 4-5 year-olds! They are so special and sweet! I am looking forward to another year full of fun, laughs, hugs and amazing discoveries!
Throughout my years of teaching I have lesson planned the same way. I always have in my mind the idea of backward design. I know what I want my students to know at the end of each week…and It is up to me to find the best, most engaging way to get them there. I teach in a centers based preschool. In my classroom there are 4 free choice centers plus a library full of themes and non-theme books for the kids to enjoy if hey want some quiet. We also have teachers or volunteers running literacy, math, science, art, or fine motor centers. We don’t run all of those teacher centers each day, usually just 2 or 3.
As with most quality preschool programs, we have state core standards we have to meet, but we still keep it play-based and developmentally appropriate. That said, I have to make sure my centers for the week cover all of my subject areas, meet core standards, are developmentally appropriate and engaging.
It can feel like a lot sometimes.
My second year of teaching I would sit down and draw out some boxes-one for the letter of the week, my volunteers, books-both fiction and non, Concepts that I wanted or needed to cover in each subject area, how I wanted to change my free choice centers, and any special events such as a fire drill, picture day, parties etc.
Once that was filled in, I would take another piece of paper and make a grid for the week. I’d have a column for each day of the week, and a row for each subject.
From there, I made a template for my newsletter-which I also send to my principal as my lesson plan. I’d look at my planning grids and fill in the days centers, dates to remember, snack assignment, a brief note to parents, theme, date, books and student learning expectations.
I am a very visual person, and I found that having the 2 pieces of paper with everything in plain sight helped make lesson planning and newsletter writing so much easier and faster for me to do. What used to take hours is now finished in a few minutes and my principal, parents, and aides can clearly see what we are doing each day. The sheet with the boxes for free centers is great for my aides to refer to as we change the classroom centers to fit the following week’s theme.
I have a blank newsletter template that I keep handy in my computer files so I can keep a record of all my lesson plans-makes it a breeze to plan in coming years. I always save the new files as pdf’s to send via email, but I also print a copy for each class and post it each week on my information board outside the classroom. I changed it up this year-went from frogs to hippos…mostly because I had frogs for two years, and the hippos were so darned cute…I kind of had to.
I have a 3-day preschool 3-4 class and a 5 day prek 4-5 class to plan for, so I just use 2, however there are 2 different 2-day editable templates, a 3-day, 4-day & 5-day editable templates as well! I will include links at the end of my post.
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| Sample 4-day template |
I also have a planning calendar to follow that makes it much easier to plan for the entire year! The other preschool/prek teacher at my school and I get together at the beginning of the year and we plot out our themes and party dates for our room reps, and to keep us on track in case we need to plan ahead for absences or subs. It really does make our year go by smoothly and It helps us plan together and collaborate. (Which is HEAVEN if you have ever taught preschool!).
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| Sample 5-day blank template |
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| Here is an example of my 5-day newsletter template filled in. |
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| sample of planning calendar |
Preschool/Pre-K Lesson Planning Templates & Editable Newsletter Templates. Follow the links below for a FREE planning calendar and lesson planning templates! I know you will use them and love them!
Preschool/Pre-K Lesson Planning Templates & Editable Newsletter Templates
