Level Up Your Lesson Plans (eBook)

Ignite the Joy of Learning with Fun and Educational Materials

Teresa K. Kwant (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
256 Seiten
Jossey-Bass (Verlag)
978-1-394-28351-4 (ISBN)

Infos

Level Up Your Lesson Plans: Ignite the Joy of Learning with Fun and Educational Materials

Tired of spending hours on lesson plans? Discover strategies to streamline your planning process and maximize student engagement. Access exclusive templates, tools, and resources designed to help you create effective lessons that align with learning standards. Save time, reduce stress, and elevate your teaching game. In Level Up Your Lesson Plans: Ignite the Joy of Learning with Fun and Educational Materials, teacher Teresa Kwant delivers an exciting and practical instruction book for teachers interested in adding fun into their lesson plans, without sacrificing educational strategies. The book walks you through how to transform your teaching materials and lessons into interactive, collaborative and enjoyable learning experiences for both the teacher and students.

Kwant draws on personal and professional experiences to give actionable steps you can implement immediately. You'll also find:

• Tips for aligning your lessons with standards to make them both fun and engaging
• Strategies for building your own instructional plans for daily success with student learning
• Techniques to develop your own lessons plans efficiently, and with high engagement

Perfect for new and veteran classroom teachers looking for student engagement tips, Level Up Your Lesson Plans is a hands-on playbook for planning smarter, so you teach better. This book is the hands-on, creative teaching playbook the education community has been waiting for.

Teresa Kwant is a veteran teacher-turned 'edupreneur' who has sold more than $2 million in education resources. Teresa operates Teacher-Author Brilliance and Teresa Kwant LLC, in which she coaches educators into doing the same. She is a popular influencer and trusted voice in the edupreneurship space. Visit www.teresakwant.com to learn more about Teresa and her work.

Textauszug

CHAPTER 1
Game On: The Level‐Up Lesson Layout

I've always liked a good game plan. From knowing my entire life I was going to be a teacher to organizing lesson plans, or even planning a family vacation, watching everything fall into place gives me a sense of accomplishment. Having a game plan for my life is one way I find peace. So, when my first day as a sixth‐grade teacher went off without a hitch, I expected most days to be the same. That was a young, naive, and very optimistic view. While I can look back on my teaching career with pride and remember most of my teaching days having well‐thought‐out game plans, the day I had my son was probably one of the worst‐planned days of my life. In the end, things worked out, but we will cover that day in the classroom later.

I've always known I was made to be a teacher. This is evident from my earliest memories when I would boss my little sister around as we made makeshift classrooms for our dolls. I spent hours arranging my Barbies as students and dreaming of the time I could have real students of my own. Believe it or not, I even dreamed about correcting papers!

My journey as a teacher has evolved over the years. In college, I spent my time between classes at a local private school in its after‐school program and then later as one of their preschool teachers. Every spare minute of my time was focused on learning to grow in a profession I was finally going to be a part of. As my university days came to a close, I spent my time as a student teacher in both second‐ and fifth‐grade classrooms. This was a drastic turning point for me. While I first imagined teaching kindergarten or first grade, I soon realized upper elementary was where I wanted to be.

After graduating from the University of Utah with my bachelor's degree in elementary education, I was looking for a teaching position. It was summer, and I had my whole life ahead of me. For whatever reason, I thought it would also be a great idea to get my wisdom teeth out (want to keep those pearly whites straight!). So, as graduation ended and summer began, I headed to the oral surgeon to extract my wisdom teeth. Keep in mind, during this entire time, I was madly applying for any and all teaching positions I could find. I wanted to get hired closer to the beginning of the summer so I would have more time to plan and prep my classroom.

After the procedure, I headed home. A couple days later, I had an interview set up for an upper elementary teaching position. There were several positions open, so they were not assigning the grade levels until after the interviews. With a puffy face fresh from wisdom teeth removal, I walked confidently into the elementary school to meet the principal in my best skirt and blouse I could find, praying they lessened the distraction of my chipmunk cheeks.

I don't remember much about the interview other than loving the principal and instantly feeling a connection. She invited me to walk around the school, and I took that as a good sign that my puffy cheeks were not a problem. As she showed me the classrooms, the technology the school was equipped with, and all the building had to offer, call it intuition, but I knew I was going to work there. She hadn't offered me a job yet but had mentioned a sixth‐grade teaching position that was open.

A few days later, I got the call. I was hired as a sixth‐grade elementary school teacher. Just like I had hoped, it was near the beginning of the summer, and I would have plenty of time to plan, which would be necessary, because as I walked into room 123, I realized there was a lot of work to do. I found about six bottles of glue, a teacher's desk, and some student desks and chairs. That was it.

Luckily, I was given a grant as a new teacher, and with hundreds of dollars of my own money and some donations from my mom and mother‐in‐law, I got my classroom to where it needed to be to welcome new sixth‐grade students. I prepared all summer, even taking the lesson plans and school books with me on vacations. Nervous doesn't even begin to describe how I felt, but I was going to be prepared. This is what I was made for.

I planned the first day of school down to the exact minute. I had getting to know you projects, team‐building games, art lessons, and rule‐setting activities so the first day would be fun for everyone. Setting up classroom rules and expectations were woven throughout that first day and first few weeks of school. I can't even count the hours I spent planning for that first day, but it paid off. I will never forget as the class was leaving, one boy happily smiling and shouting, “This was the best school day ever!” My goal was accomplished. I wanted students to not only learn in school but also love coming to school, too.

Sitting down at my desk after that first day of school, I felt happy, accomplished, and ready to tackle the world. While college can be a great introduction to teaching, it did not prepare me for what lay ahead: 30+ students, old school books, an expectation to teach subjects like science with little to no science materials, an assumption that I should write grants to get money to supply my classroom or use cash from my own pockets, and the realization that grading papers may not be as fun as I imagined when I was eight. However, I pushed on because I loved these kids, and I had a passion for education. This was where I was meant to be. My entire life led to this moment, and I was finally becoming the person I dreamed of being.

Fast‐forward three years. Sometimes our lives don't go as planned. Sometimes, we have to go with the flow. And, sometimes, those spontaneous moments end up being the most memorable and happiest events of our lives. This is how I would describe the birth of my son. It was the middle of March, yet his due date was April 4th. I had my maternity sub plans fully put together at this point, but I was still madly writing updates to them and making sure all lessons were outlined correctly.

At the time, the school I was at was on a year‐round schedule. This meant the classes were on different tracks, and our breaks were spread out throughout the year instead of being lumped together in one summer. We would usually teach nine weeks and then be off for two to three weeks. My son was supposed to be born during one of these breaks, and I was looking forward to saying goodbye for a time to my students and getting them all set up for when their substitute would return after their three‐week break. My game plan was set to be a home run. My students were in capable hands while I was gone, plans were ready, and we were quickly approaching our time off.

One beautiful March morning, I woke up eager to finish out the school days ahead. We had just wrapped up parent‐teacher conferences the week before, and I was exhausted. Assuming it was because of my pregnancy, I didn't think much of it. I had a checkup with my doctor the day before because I was feeling off, but nothing at the time seemed wrong. I squeezed my shoes on, which was a task because my feet were very swollen, and shuffled into school as only a pregnant teacher less than a month from her due date can do.

I taught almost the entire day. It was 2 p.m., and my students were at recess. I took a quick bathroom break and ran to the office, leaving my phone in the classroom. As I walked back through the office, the secretary stopped me and said, “Your doctor just called the school looking for you. She said you need to call her and get to the hospital immediately.” I rushed to my classroom to find several missed calls from both my doctor and my husband. Apparently, this was an emergency if she was calling my school and husband!

While on the phone with my doctor, she informed me that some tests from the previous day came back and confirmed I had preeclampsia. I needed to get to the hospital immediately, and no, I could not wait to finish out the school day. This was an emergency. Suddenly, my plans were falling apart. We had three days until our break, I did not have those days planned for a substitute, and my students were counting on me. However, my health and the baby's health were at risk. So, I frantically left my students with my coworker and booked it to my car.

Upon reaching my vehicle, I discovered I had locked my keys in the car. Unbelievable. This was not the plan. Sheepishly, I made my way back into the office. After explaining my predicament to the office ladies and emphasizing the urgency of the situation, one of the secretaries took me to my house where I met my husband, and we then drove to the hospital. All the while, I am messaging a teacher friend, who was also my teaching mentor, asking her, while she is on her break, if she could come in and sub for a few days and explaining she may have to just wing it because I didn't have time in my hospital bed to make plans. This, may I add, is a strange responsibility teachers have and put on themselves. We feel the burden of educating these children no matter the scenario. We come to know our students on a level that no one else does for the year. We know all their challenges, successes, and setbacks. We know how best to suit their needs. Getting a sub even for a day can be overwhelming for a teacher, but for maternity leave? It's akin to the plans made for the Apollo moon landing.

Without going into much detail, since this isn't a book about pregnancy after all, 12 hours later our son entered the world. It was an experience I will...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 28.4.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik ► Bildungstheorie
• Schlagworte: Education • engaging lesson plans • interesting lesson plans • Student Engagement
• ISBN-10: 1-394-28351-2 / 1394283512
• ISBN-13: 978-1-394-28351-4 / 9781394283514