How I Plan a Unit

This week I am on the mission of completing another HASS unit so I thought I would take you on my journey of how I create a complete unit.

The first step I take is looking at the curriculum. Usually I divide the curriculum for each subject/area into 4 groups so I have a unit for each term. I use my curriculum checklists and cut up the aspects.
(Find my Curriculum Checklists for F-6 in my store).

Once I am happy with the groupings I choose one that either I am most motivated about or the one that makes sense to be first. Maybe it runs into other aspects or involves prior knowledge or is just an easier topic to cover in first term. I take the aspects and write them down in a brainstorm and from their add points from the elaborations (available on the Australian Curriculum website).

As ideas for lessons and the flow of the planner start coming I start adding numbers to represent the ten lessons I plan around. Sometimes this means that I start a new brainstorm to allow enough room for the planning. There is usually a bit of crossing out and arrows drawn from one side of the page till the other until all the tweaking is done and I am happy to move on. I find ideas come to me fairly naturally but you might like to look around the internet and Pinterest for ideas and activities on how to teach different concepts.

I then start working in my planning document. I add the title, year level, summary and copy in the aspects. The next thing I tackle is the lesson focus. I write down the main the students are doing or learning in each lesson. Sometimes by defining the focus I realise I need to move things around again or that a particular activity I wanted to do doesn't really work for the unit then i'll go back to the brainstorm until I am happy again. I always work with a template from a similar unit I have done so all the formatting is done and I can keep them consistent. I highlight anything still remaining from the template planner yellow so I don't miss anything. I often will refer to a list of verbs for objects such as this one during this process.

Then I go through an start writing in what ideas I already have for each lesson. If I already know exactly what is going to happen in the lesson I will plan it out fully including filling in the resources and assessment column although the wording may not be as clear or succinct as I would like.
If I don't know exactly how the lesson will play out or need to research items in greater detail before I plan them I will just write dot points.

As the lessons start to come together I will refer to the teaching and learning strategies I have at the top of the planner to ensure I am using a wide range. If I am stuck for how to deliver a lesson I will also look at the strategies to spark ideas. 

I then write up the resources I need to source or create and begin to make them. I prefer to use PowerPoint to design my resources because of how easy it is to move images and text boxes. Sometimes while I am creating the resources I will have better ideas or something I though would work didn't and I will go back to my planner and tweak.

So that's my design process. I hope you have gotten some ideas to help with your own planning.

I have heaps of resources in my store that are great additions to units or let me do all the hard work for you and download one of my complete units instead.
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