Right About Now

As unbelievable as it sounds, we're already past the middle of November which means December is looming and the end of term is right around the corner. I still have two more lessons focused on reductive printing for my Painting and Drawing students and the lessons I had planned to follow up are still looking good to me. With my preschool and toddler classes I'm wavering, in fact I've already changed my mind for the Art exploration lessons I was going to do this weekend. It's a bit of a running joke between me and the admin where I teach that I'm likely to change my mind a few times before a class starts. As much as we laugh about it and as much time and energy that I spend building a lesson plan I do quite often change my mind' sometimes in the twenty minutes it takes for me to walk to work.

So even though I'm sure I'll change my mind... It's time now to start thinking about Plans for next term. I'm fairly new to creating lesson plans. I don't have a background in education so how I plan lessons and create a lesson plan might not be what is common. I'll share my steps here to give you an idea of how i do things. I'd love to see how others approach planning too.




I use Pinterest heavily to build my lesson plans; not just for inspiration but also for organizing, and giving myself a visual reference of what I'll be teaching each week. On top of continual browsing and adding ideas to dedicated lesson inspiration boards on Pinterest; each term I also build a lesson plan board full of ideas to make my own; and in a few cases to just straight teach. And I don't want to forget that I also keep a board on Pinterest of lessons I have taught. When I get stuck I like to browse through that board to see if there are any techniques or lessons I can adjust or revisit. I have in the past taken ideas straight off of Pinterest and used them in my plans but I rarely leave them untouched, I may use a technique but change the subject of a lesson; or take a subject and try to adjust the techniques used so that each lesson is my own.

For Painting and drawing lessons I cross reference artists or art works; movements and elements of art to reference in the lesson with that Pinterest board.  For my Preschool classes I also look up books to read aloud to the class (combining literacy and art is an ongoing goal for me). Then I start compiling supplies needed for each lesson,  and start writing a description for each lesson that explains the steps, what elements of art I'm teaching and what the learning goals are.

I make a list of what dates I am teaching for each lesson and then use my calendar to figure out what order I'll teach them in and adjust any lessons to suit holidays or seasonal changes. In some cases I'll even try to coincide materials for different classes taught on the same day so that transition to the next class is simpler and clean up isn't too heavy or complicated.

Once I have a good idea of what I plan to teach each week Add my descriptions and supply lists into a word file that I can print for myself and email to the centre where I teach so that any supplies I will need can be stocked or restocked.

In a few cases I will source materials and include them in my invoice. When I make my plans I keep in mind budget restraints as on top of student skill levels and all the other things that  make a difference to the success of a lesson IE: that one time that there was overwhelming refusal by a whole class of toddlers to use strings dipped in black ink for a lesson and the subsequent improvisation that followed; and the adjusting of the plan for a later class to avoid the same problem later that day. 

All of this usually takes me a full day for each class to complete with a 1/2 day to edit and adjust for dates and overlapping classes. It's a lot of work but it's also the part where I get to become excited all over again about the upcoming term.