Creating organized, efficient weekly lesson plans is critical for elementary school teachers to ensure student success. Effective lesson planning helps teachers map out learning goals, instructional strategies, assessments, and resources needed for each week and daily lessons.
Thoughtfully constructed weekly templates allow elementary teachers to:
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- Strategically align lessons to curriculum standards and requirements
- Build continuity across each week
- Balance various subjects and learning activities
- Prepare necessary supplies and materials ahead of time
This article covers tips and strategies to create customizable weekly lesson plan templates to meet the unique needs of elementary school teachers and students.
Benefits of Using Weekly Lesson Plan Templates
Using lesson plan templates each week provides numerous benefits for elementary teachers:
- Maintains consistency: Standard templates establish natural continuity across weeks and subjects. Teachers can easily assess student progress, mastery, and goals week over week.
- Saves time: After initial template set up, plans can be duplicated and edited making planning easier and faster over time.
- Encourages Alignment: Templates allow mapping curriculum standards, assessments, and activities week-by-week at a glance to prevent gaps or duplication.
- Increases organization: Premade templates reduce stress, chaos from shifting activities, and last minute preparation each week for elementary teachers. Everything is outlined from the start.
Best Practices for Crafting Weekly Lesson Templates
When creating weekly lesson plan templates, elementary teachers should keep the following best practices in mind:
- Student-focused structure: Each component should center around desired student outcomes. What should students know, understand, and be able to do?
- Incorporate variety: Balance teacher-guided instruction, engaging activities, guided/independent practice, and assessment throughout the week.
- Map to standards: Explicitly link required curriculum standards and learning objectives into each week and day. Track mastery.
- Leave flexibility: Allow space for adjustment day-to-day even when using an established template. Student needs change.
- Simple format: Avoid overly complex templates. Leave portions blank for quick edits. Use brief bullet points to outline essential components fast.
- List resources/supports: Include columns to list necessary technology, manipulatives, reference materials, websites, and helpers required.
- Set goals: Consider including a section for quick notes or goals for the following week based on student performance or areas of need.
Components to Include in Weekly Lesson Plan Templates
An elementary teacher’s lesson plan template for the entire week should include the following key components organized by each day/subject:
Overview
- Week’s objectives, topics, and text/stories
- Pacing guide alignment
- Corresponding standards
- Essential questions
- Vocabulary
- Other bases for instruction
Daily Schedule Sections
- Subjects/time frames
- Standards addressed
- Learning targets/objectives
- Resources and tech needed
- Teaching inputs/instructional strategies (mini-lesson, demonstration, activation of prior knowledge, etc)
- Guided/independent practice activities
- Expected student work products
Assessment
- Exit tasks
- Checks for understanding
- Rubrics
- Planned quizzes/tests/projects
Accommodations/Modifications
- Personalized supports for exceptional students
Reflection/Next Week Goals
- Review week’s strengths and target growth areas
- Set adjusted goals
Templates by Grade Level
Weekly templates will look slightly different across lower versus upper elementary grades based on maturity and content areas.
Kindergarten – 2nd Grade:
- Heavy emphasis on reading, writing, math, science, and social skills instruction
- More movement and hands-on activities
- Additional focus on executive functioning
3rd Grade – 5th Grade:
- Increased complexity in reading, writing assignments
- Added technology integration
- Introduction of student independence
Tips by Subject
Teachers should also tailor lesson plan templates week-to-week based on curriculum needs in core subjects:
Reading/ELA: Set weekly vocabulary words. Coordinate texts and skill-building.
Writing: Include mini-lessons and allow independent writing time.
Math: Spiral review essential skills with new concept instruction.
Science/Social Studies: Schedule weekly or monthly to allow necessary lesson time.
How to Actually Use the Templates
The ultimate goal is not just to create elementary lesson plan templates, but consistently put them to use. Here are some tips:
- Print copies monthly for manual lesson preparation if desired
- Post templates in Google Classroom or personalized online system for easy access
- Prepare plans individually or collaborate with grade-level teaching teams
- Use premade notes section to reflect on past weeks and set future goals
- Store finalized versions for later referral digitally or in lesson plan binders
Answering Teacher’s FAQs
Here are some common questions teachers ask about weekly lesson planning templates:
How do I make templates flexible for changing needs?
Build basic structure teachers can then adapt. Include blank sections to add, remove, or shift activities or resources. Start with comprehensive versions then streamline from there.
What tech tools help build and access lesson templates?
Google Docs, Google Slides, Excel, Word and free planning sites like Plan board or Common Curriculum allow easy remote access and sharing year-to-year.
Can I collaborate with other teachers on templates?
Definitely! Grade-level teaching teams can construct master templates for their contexts, students, standards requirements and more. Then customize together for weekly variety.
How strictly should I adhere to a standard template?
Rely on the templates as guides, not mandates set in stone. Maintain core objectives, supports, assessments but adjust time allocations, activities, and supplemental resources week-by-week.
Conclusion
Creating organized weekly lesson plan templates is an invaluable investment for elementary teachers leading multi-faceted classrooms. Whether building fresh templates or relying on go-to versions from previous years, maintaining an effective lesson planning system provides assurance learning goals are covered across each week.
Teachers should periodically review templates to confirm suitability from week-to-week based on evolving student needs. However, implementing thoughtfully constructed lesson planning templates eliminates guesswork, redundancies, anxiety from reinventing plans constantly or gaps in elementary instruction over the school year. Maintaining consistency with flexibility embedded is key.
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