47. Plan Units TFA style for BP1, BP2, HLI, SD, CVS, DAU (2/6)

Slightly cooler weather, fall clothing sales, "Naked Lady" Belladonna lilies blooming, and football on TV...yep, it's back to school time. Even though my summer has flashed by in what seems like a single day, I have to acknowledge the fact that in a couple of weeks I'll be back to the daily grind.

Since I'm going to be having company the next two weeks and we are only returning to our school buildings 1 day before the students arrive, any preparation I want to do needs to start now. It's always overwhelming thinking about where to begin. So in reflecting about what would be the most beneficial, I knew that strong unit plans have always been helpful to me. There are many different versions and interpretations of what a unit plan actually is but the format I like comes from my TFA days.

For lots of different reasons I only had one of these fully completed and on file. I never did the official TFA version for my 6 other units. Now don't get me wrong-- I've done tons of unit plans. It's just that they're either informally documented in my random notebooks and papers (see picture above) or are in a version that's not useful for actual teaching. Therefore, I knew I needed to just buckle down and complete them the TFA way.

So today I dug back into my teacher bag that I haven't touched since the last day of school. I pulled out my teacher guides, standards, the school calendar, and all my old electronic documents (tests, quizzes, homework, worksheets, etc) and did some planning.

I'm not sure if this is the most efficient way of using my time because there are still many unknown factors: Will the curriculum and text books even be the same or will they change this year? Will I still be teaching this grade? How long will my classes be and what does the schedule look like? Were the methods I'm reusing and basing the plans of off even effective? I won't know any of this for another couple of weeks. Regardless, it's a good place to start and helps me to slowly readjust back into school mode.

I only completed two unit plans but hopefully I can finish them this week. Then I can focus on planning for the first crucial days of school. I know that I have to be as prepared as possible for anything and everything during those crazy weeks we first come back!