Curriculum maps are a great way to outline your teaching goals and objectives for the school year. They can be used in any grade level, but are especially helpful for lower elementary and kindergarten teachers. Robust curriculum maps will help keep you organized and on track throughout the school year. This blog post will discuss how to write a curriculum map and what they are used for.
Why are curriculum maps important?
Curriculum maps are an excellent tool for teachers. A curriculum map is simply a way to outline your goals and objectives for the school year. They can be used to plan out your lessons, track your progress, and keep you organized throughout the year. Curriculum maps are especially helpful for lower elementary and kindergarten teachers, as they can help you with upward leveling planning and planning with your grade level teams. Especially working with kindergarteners, curriculum mapping helps me plan out my interventions and track how students are progressing through preschool and kindergarten common core standards.
Why Use Curriculum Maps?
Curriculum maps are an important tool for teachers because they help you:
– Keep track of your progress and plan for upcoming lessons
– Level up your students by planning ahead with grade-level teams
– See the big picture of what you need to teach throughout the year
– Make adjustments to your plans as needed
What Should Curriculum Maps Include?
Curriculum maps should be broken down by quarter, then by months and weeks of the school year. On my curriculum maps, I include the subject, the standards met each week, target skills, example activities, and the unit or lessons from the curriculum that I will be using to teach those skills. I also leave room on the map to track my progress and make changes as needed.
How to Create a Curriculum Map
When writing a curriculum map, there are a few things to remember. First, you will want to identify the overall goals or objectives for the year. This could be something like, “increasing student achievement” or “implementing new teaching strategies.” Once you have your goal, you can begin breaking it into smaller objectives. These could include “students will be able to read at a first-grade level by the end of the year” or “teachers will use data to inform their instruction.”
Once you have your goals and objectives mapped out, you can begin thinking about what content standards or skills you will need to teach in order to achieve those objectives. For example, if one of your objectives is “students will be able to read at a first-grade level by the end of the year,” you will want to make sure that you are teaching the appropriate reading standards for your students. Once you are done mapping out your content standards by quarter, you can go back through your list of standards, such as the Common Core standards, and ensure you’ve hit every standard necessary for your grade level.
Once you have mapped out your goals, objectives, and content standards, you can begin thinking about the instructional strategies you will use to support your students in achieving those objectives. This is where you will really get into the nitty-gritty of your lesson planning. You will want to think about things like:
- What materials will I need?
- How will I engage my students?
- What type of assessment will I use to check for understanding?
- Which weeks will I need to plan on extra review?
If you’re new to curriculum mapping, or just want a refresher, a curriculum map template is a great place to start. Just fill in the information specific to your class and start planning! You can get these on many online teaching sites or you can check out my best-selling curriculum map template here.
I hope this post has been helpful in explaining what curriculum maps are and how to write them! If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me at kassandra@fearlessinkindergarten.com. Curriculum mapping is such a valuable tool for teachers – I encourage you to give it a try in your own classroom. You (and your sanity) will thank you! If you’re busy preparing for the beginning of the year, check out this blog post for my tips on classroom procedures!
For more tips on planning, check out this blog post from Stephanie at Teaching Little Leaders. She’s the best at maximizing your prep time and I love the lesson planning hacks she gives! Speaking of planning, you can also click here to get my free kindergarten math common core checklist.
