In a career with a constantly growing job description, teachers need ways to simplify their tasks in a way that’s effective and efficient. We must work smarter, not harder. That’s why I put together this post to help you skip the endless hours researching and scrolling and taking notes. Let’s simplify your teacher life and get prepared for students to master the standards.

You want to start your year off with a solid curriculum plan. Maybe your school provides ample resources to cover each of your science standards. Maybe they have a program or two that can get you by, but it doesn’t go deep enough for students to truly master the learning. Or maybe, your school has supplied you with nothing but a list of standards. Whatever your situation, I want you to be set up with a confident and in-depth guide for each standard of the school year.

Imagine having a list of hands-on activities that cover a variety of mastery points for each standard. And, having a list of things that may slip your mind or you just didn’t know you should cover.

If you’ve been around here with me for a while, you know I love having everything planned and ready to print & teach before the school year even begins. I like a solid curriculum that allows me to leave work on time and spend my whole weekend with my family (or in my bubble bath haha) while also providing a high quality, engaging education so my students can see success and mastery of their standards. I keep systems and resources in place so I can plug in ready-made activities to each day and not have to waste time searching for ideas. You deserve to have that freedom, too!!

I have just posted my new planning tool to help make sure you get each standard covered in depth with engaging, research based activities.

This is a simple tool that gives you in-depth mastery points for each standard. The activities listed provide hands-on learning so students can experience each part of each standard.

I also include links to corresponding resources with printables and complete lesson sets in case you also need materials for each week.

Let’s talk about 3 things that will help your students master a standard. This can be your basic lesson planning checklist.

1. Specific, in-depth learning goals that cover every angle of a standard.

I have always written one or two learning goals per standard that give a good umbrella of what we will be covering. But, I have recently put in the time and effort to come up with multiple learning goals for each standard. This allows you to break down each standard into more specific and in-depth goals for your students, giving them more mastery of the standard.

To do this, you need to research each standard to find several elements of the topic that guide students to a well rounded understanding of that topic. {Don’t worry, I have done this and I have made this resource available to save you the time and effort!}

2. Common Misconceptions for each standard.

Going into each lesson, you will have a variety of background knowledge and misconceptions in your classroom. A misconception or lack of background knowledge can prevent a student from grasping new information. It’s important to know ahead of time certain things to look for and be prepared. We want each student to have a solid foundation going into a lesson. Having a list of common misconceptions or uncommon details about a topic will help you plan a perfect foundation building, pre-learning activity for your lesson. {Don’t worry, I am also sharing teacher notes and common misconceptions for each standard!}

3. Vocabulary for each standard

Vocabulary is your golden ticket to building that foundational knowledge for each standard. Vocabulary knowledge and understanding builds throughout the entire lesson. You can introduce vocabulary through a simple informational text and let the understanding grow through the hands-on learning and labs. Then, use critical thinking and analyzing data to build that true in-depth understanding. {Don’t worry, my new planning tool also has a vocabulary list for each standard!}

I am really excited to have all of this detailed information on hand going into every lesson next year. It’s a lot of work to put it all together, but it will save so much time in the long run.

You can grab the FREE portion here which gets you through the Matter and Energy standards for both NGSS and TEKS. And, you can grab the full year version here to get you through your entire school year!