TEACHER TIMESAVER: HOW TO MAKE LESSON PLANNING EASIER (plus a freebie)

I am always looking for ways to save myself time in my teacher life. One thing that consistently feels like it takes forever is lesson planning. Every week, my team sits down to plan for the upcoming week. For awhile, this became a 2 (or more) hour meeting. Ugh. I love my team, but I don't love making us sit down and lesson plan for that long. Why? Because after we weekly plan, we still have to input our own plans into our teacher planners. Talk about a long process. There had to be a more efficient way.

That's why we started to long-term lesson plan. The time it took us to plan weekly went from several hours to under 1!!  Yes, this does take some time up front. But it's worth it when you think about the time you'll save in the long run.

So, are you ready to start saving time?! Here's how: 

Start by setting up a template that works for you. You'll need a monthly header and a table with the subjects you teach or want to plan for, and the weeks in each month. Not sure how to do this yourself? These monthly planning templates are all ready to go for you with options for 4-8 subjects to plan for OR you can try a printable version of the September Planning Template for free (available at the bottom of this post). 

Now that you have your template set up, you can start inputting your plans for each month. When my team and I are doing this, we put in a general overview for each subject. The overview includes the topic and/or standard we'll be teaching with resources we know we'll be using. We do not include a breakdown for each day of the week in our monthly plans. We save the breakdown for our weekly meetings. 

Once your plans are in your monthly template, you can print or keep it digital for your reference. Every week when my team meets, we refer to our monthly plans. Having this framework helps us hash out each day quickly. It also allows us to come to our meetings prepared with resources we might need for the following week. In addition to coming to meetings prepared, we can also start prepping weeks ahead of time. 

I know that this summer I'll be able to prep for August and September thanks to my Monthly Planning Calendars! 

Want to try Monthly Planning for one month FREE? Grab a printable version of the September Planning Template by clicking the pink button at the bottom of this post. 

Need to come back later? Make sure to pin so you can find it when you need it :) 

Have teacher timesaver tips? Feel free to leave them in the comments below :)