Lesson planning can be a MONSTER.
It's this continual chore and sometimes I have felt like I'm barely ahead. And that's stressful!
At the beginning of my first year of teaching, kids would ask "what are we gonna do tomorrow?" And I genuinely didn't know.
It was horrible.
I had to go home and figure out what the hell we were gonna do tomorrow. And it took HOURS.
I didn't sleep much that year.
I'm (thankfully) better at it now. If you feel like the lesson plan monster is gaining ground on you, then here are 5 tips:
Recycle your lessons from last year.
You can obviously only do this if you aren't currently in your first year of teaching (or first year teaching this subject).
If this is your first year, then just know that next year will be easier.
My first couple years of teaching I would write feedback on how the lesson went at the end of the day. It seriously took like a minute and it prevented me from re-using the lessons that flopped. The only thing worse than teaching a terrible flop of a lesson is doing it two years in a row.
Beg, borrow, and steal from colleagues.
If you work in a department with other Spanish teachers, then steal their lessons and make them your own.
If you're a department of 1, then try to meet other Spanish teachers in similar schools nearby in those boring professional development meetings you're required to go to.
Or use those detective skills you have from stalking ex-boyfriends online and find the contact info of Spanish teachers in nearby schools and cold email them. Ask them if you can steal all their shizz collaborate with them some time soon and schedule a day for you to co-plan together.
I can attest that I made new best friends with another #deptof1 Spanish teacher at a boring and useless and time-wasting professional development meeting and it made my teaching approximately 203984039 times better. Being able to bounce ideas off of a human being and not your cats is worth the 2 seconds of awkwardly talking to a stranger.
Talk to your math and science and ELA and music teacher friends in your school and find out what types of activities they do that kids are always engaged with. Then adapt them to Spanish!
One of my favorite activities to do with students was something I saw the math teacher across the hall do. And he stole it from the science teacher around the corner. #truestory
Hit up teacherspayteachers.com and see what goodies you can find.
My 5th year of teaching was the first time I had more than 2 preps. And two of the classes I taught were brand spanking new to me!
Ain't nobody got time for that amount of lesson planning.
A significant portion of the lessons I taught came directly from TpT. Work smarter not harder.
Dedicate one day a week to lesson planning.
Block out one day after school or Sunday afternoon or whatever works for your schedule and bang out the whole week of lesson plans (or whatever time period works for you).
Stay far enough ahead that you have a comfortable buffer, and can still be flexible when there's a snow day or an assembly the admin decided not to tell anyone about until the day of, or any of the other 900 things happen that regularly interrupt instruction.
Invest in a curriculum.
This option isn't free, but you can gain a whole lot more free time.
You'll still have to get to work on time, teach your students, contact parents, grade papers, fill out IEP paperwork, hold your pee for 3 and a half hours until lunch time... but you can cross off "lesson planning" from your To Do list!
Bonus tip!
Join Listo y Llamativo.
It's a year-long curriculum for Spanish 1 and 2 at a low monthly or yearly price.
It's ideal for you if you want every lesson, quiz, powerpoint, project, classwork, bell work... legit everything done for you.
You can take lesson planning entirely off your to do list and focus on grading and drinking wine on your couch. Probably not at the same time though.
Check out all the info and get on the waitlist so you don't miss out next time the doors open!
If you have any tips for staying ahead of the lesson planning monster, please add them below in the comments!
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