Sixth Grade Planning

Now that I’m home from my last trip away from home for the summer, it’s time to plunge headlong into planning for sixth grade. (There are still a few things I’m planning on pulling together as part of my fifth grade curriculum package, though.)

There are several ways that I approach my planning for the year and over the course of the summer I alternate between these different types of planning.

1. Reading. This is what I enjoy most about having those long lazy summer days (when I get them.) There is nothing like completely immersing myself in a book to really get me in the mood and set the tone for the year. This summer I’m reading a fantastic biography of Jesus, Kovacs’ book Ancient Rome, and a biography of Muhammad by Karen Armstrong. With this kind of preparation it is the history curriculum that inspires me most.
2. Block planning. Partly inspired by the reading books and partly inspired by the more traditional history books from the library that I also read, I sit down with my lesson planner and map out each block. This is when I make decisions about what is the most important content for the year and I find the way to fit it all in.
3. Projects, field trips and extras. This involves sitting down with the calendar and my block plan and waiting for inspiration to come. I think about what field trips we might be able to take, what class readers might fit with the different blocks, and what reports I might have the children do. I think about how the festivals will fit in with our rhythm of the year and how we might honor them in our work together.
4. Daily rhythm and artistic work. I really like to have a daily rhythm that stays the same throughout the course of the year. Last year I found that starting with the same song and having a strong rhythm to our morning routine made my life so much easier and the children really appreciated being able to count on having such a similar experience everyday. For me it is important to plan out the artistic work because I always find it to be a very time consuming process. If I know ahead of time which songs we’re going to sing with the different blocks I’m not fumbling about for it late Sunday night.
5. Classroom work and gathering supplies. This is the nitty-gritty, down-to-basics work that simply must get done. The classroom must be prepared. I must make sure I have enough pencils and main lesson books. This year I have to order a set of math books that need time to arrive. Sometimes I find this work to be the most uninteresting and least inspiring of my prep work, but when I am in the right frame of mind about it I find it very satisfying to arrange the desks just so, make all of the name tags, and have their new supplies ready in fresh, neat stacks.

There are so many things to be done, it’s a wonder that I feel like I have a break at all, but somehow the time is there to do it all and I love being able to take my time through it all.