Back to School Planning Starts with the Basics
When I’m planning for a new school year, I always start by reviewing my district’s/region’s curriculum standards. I like to print a copy of the standards so I can mark it up and highlight important concepts. After I’ve browsed through the curriculum standards for my grade(s) and region, I do an inventory check of what math resources I already have and which ones I need. I use a Resource Checklist that I created when I spring cleaned my teaching materials, and now I’ve added a Back to School Checklist. You can download it here for FREE. I have found it to be extremely helpful! 😊Once I’ve figured out what resources I’m missing, I hunt for ones that I need. I also create my own, which makes it super easy for customizing them the way that I like. Last week, I chatted about how to individualize learning using digital resources. Read it here if you missed it. Once I get a feel for my students’ needs, I’m able to quickly tailor math resources to meet their needs. Learn how to easily do this in my upcoming course. Here’s a download that will walk you through 5 steps towards creating your own digital resources. Click here to download. When purchasing resources that others have created, I have a system for ensuring that I’m buying QUALITY resources that will meet curriculum standards, save me time, and match the needs and interests of my students. Find out how I do it in the download.
Digital Resources are Effective Teaching Companions
In previous posts, I’ve chatted about how digital resources can expand learning, work together with hands-on activities, and are great in math centers. In order to make this integration work, you must have quality digital resources. Things I look for in digital resources to purchase are: 🍏 Do the resources include lessons that make it easy for me to teach concepts?🍏 Are they aligned with the curriculum standards I’m trying to meet?
🍏 Do they include lots of opportunity for student practice?
🍏 Is the activity easy to read and understand?
🍏 Are they fun and engaging?
We want resources to have all of the important things first, like meeting standards, but we also don’t want to bore our kids with a mountain of worksheets all year. Two of my most popular curriculum bundles include engaging activities, lessons, examples, and digital student task cards for ALL Common Core Math Curriculum Standards all while engaging students with fun, colorful characters! Click each image to red more about them.
When collecting resources, I make sure to include a range of activities: hands-on, digital, video, etc. Kids learn best when given a variety of learning media. Remember, we all learn differently.
Reviewing Last Year’s Learning is a Foundation for Student Success
Once I’ve collected all the resources I need, I start mapping out my 1st semester/term. We all know about the “summer slide”. This is why it is so important to start the school year off with tons of review of previous math concepts. Combine the summer slide with an extra challenging year of crazy COVID conditions, and we can be sure our kids will need extra care and support during those first few months back at school (even if you’re teaching virtually).
It’s so important to build that solid foundation at the beginning so we can build upon it throughout the school year. I always start with a thorough review of place value/number sense. We need to remember that even though kids have likely learned these concepts before, they do forget A LOT of the stuff, especially when the learning environment has been unstable. Regardless of the the craziness of the past year, kids still greatly benefit from a solid review of these concepts.
I start by going over the value of numbers: hundreds, tens, ones, reading and writing numbers, comparing numbers, and counting and skip-counting strategies. After that, I go over addition and subtraction concepts and strategies. These Numbers and Operations Bundles/Resources are super helpful for building that solid foundation with place value and basic numbers and operations (they are also included in the Complete Curriculum Bundles that I mentioned above 😉).
The nice thing about these being digital is that 🍏 they’re no-prep and 🍏 you can easily send them to students via email or Google Classroom (no battle with the copier 😆). Click the image to read more about each resource.
Before the school year even begins, I have already spent time at school prepping for the term/semester. I get my digital resources all nicely organized on my computer, in easy-to-find folders by topic. I also plan and copy the worksheets/workbooks I will need for the term. This saves me soooo much time in the long term. I print out my anchor charts on card stock so they’re durable and ready to go! I also print out math games on card stock so kids can reuse them again and again. I makes sets of reusable math activities that can be slipped into dry-erase pockets/sleeves to save paper and prep time. 😊 These are really handy for early finishers, math warm-ups, etc.
I hope this post has helped you think about how you will prep for the upcoming school year. Don’t forget to download your back-to-school guides for digital resources here and here. Comment below with your favorite way to prep for back to school. I’d love to hear your ideas! 😊 Have a great week!
Jess 🍏