Lesson Plans

It was a slightly frustrating day. I got up early, made breakfast and then headed to school to work. The power was out. I was hoping it would come back on so I sat down to work. I ended up working 2 hours in the powerless room on science lessons for one group. I needed the power to use my computer and create a document my next 2 weeks of lesson plans to be turned in Monday. I have always had an issue with lesson plan creation but expecting a fully thought out 2 week plan is really stressful to me. I also needed access to the internet, to aid in the finer creation of each lesson, and it soon became apparent that I had done all I could do without power and I needed to go home. I got home and had lunch. Then I set up my computer and spent 3 solid hours filling in the plans, hoping I had enough detail to please the principal. I decided once that was done to interpret my lessons into something I can actually use. So I connected to the internet and found I had an unreliable connection. So I took a break and read. it seemed like the universe kept trying to mess with me today.

Yes... lesson plan formats tend to make me feel confused and as a result are basically useless as far as I can tell. They seem to be more of a way for the overlords to see what you do wrong. I do have a method to my madness but in reality I usually am still creating it the day before. I spend hours looking at material so that I can understand what the point is and then focusing on how to attempt to make it accessible. I know lessons are out there but as I have said before they usually confuse me and when I do figure them out they are never really what I want but I definitely steal useful activities from them. I get that my method is not optimal and crazily time consuming. I also understand that being able to write and use lesson plans would make life easier. It is a skill I work on constantly but often I feel that the wide variety of topics I teach make the long look planning seem scary. I work with an outline of what I want to accomplish and I do my best to fit inside it and I feel free to create as I see fit. My principal changed everything though because she is asking me to have 2 weeks together by the start of every Monday. It seems daunting but perhaps I will get into a rhythm and I will conquer my phobias and trepidation. Perhaps I will get better at writing plans faster. Perhaps I will learn how to quickly adapt other lessons to fit my needs. Until that happens I feel overwhelmed and angry about it. I know I can write generic lessons but I want to write good and effective lessons that also happen to be engaging. So I have a lot of expectations and I find sometimes that plays a part in my sense of irritation.