A new month of learning is awaiting you! You can definitely grab your supplies and go, but a certain amount of planning for the month is ideal. This post will help you create a plan for the month, show you how to use the planning tools and help you make decisions about extra learning days in the month. Planning your monthly lessons is easy with the resources provided in your kit.

Create a Plan for the Month

Look through the curriculum and create a plan using your 20 lessons. This may be used for just your own lesson planning or you may want to create an activity calendar to provide your families.

Things to consider when planning your month:

• Are there more than 20 teaching days this month?
• Will you be closed some days?
• Are there holidays or special event days to work around?
• Will you need to fill in with additional activities?
• Can you combine a couple lessons?
• Are there some topics you want to extend?
• What favorite activities will you repeat or revisit?

When Should I Start an Experience Curriculum Theme?

Many programs start their new theme on the first Monday of each month. Map out your activity calendar and adjust as needed. While the number of teaching days per month varies, there are always 20 lessons provided in our curriculum kits. There are plenty of activities and resources to keep children learning! Read on for strategies to plan your month of teaching.

On your activity calendar, map out anything else you need to remember such as fire drills or special visitors.

Planning Your Days with the Theme Web

One of the planning tools provided in your Experience Preschool kit is a Theme Web. At Experience Preschool Curriculum, we select a theme and then identify four big buckets related to that theme. We fill each bucket with five related sub-topics. In this way, one month is organized by four weekly investigations with five related daily topics each week.  

Material that is well organized is much easier to learn and remember than material that is poorly organized (Durso & Coggins, 1991). 

Each theme creatively integrates colors, shapes, numbers and letters of the month.

Why do we use themes?

It is common for some teachers to feel confident around some themes but not around others. This bias may result in a child only being exposed to a limited view of our world. Imagine a teacher who despises bugs so they never want to plan activities that help children learn about insects and crawling things.

By using Experience Curriculum, it supports teachers with ideas for how to introduce topics that are less familiar in developmentally appropriate ways. When teachers and children jump into the unknown together, the result is often that the children and educators become partners in learning.

Overwhelmed by the details of a theme? Remember, children are brilliant and filled with capability. No idea is too big for them to explore. It is our job to make the ideas accessible and developmentally appropriate for them.

What About Planning Lessons with Experience Toddler?

The same process can be used with Experience Toddler. While the toddler curriculum does not include a Theme Web, you still have four one main theme and four weekly topics (story books). Use a calendar to map out your days of lessons using the planning calendars provided in your kit or on Member Resources.

What if there are more than 20 teaching days in the month?

We are commonly asked, “What if there are five weeks in the month, but you only offer 20 lessons in the kit?”

Experience Toddler and Preschool Curriculum includes 20 lessons — not necessarily 20 days. Extend the lessons to additional days if there are more than 20 teaching days of the month by following the interests of children.

Some lesson topics might make sense to extend with additional projects, field trips, or special events; some lessons may take more than one day. And remember: if you do use one lesson per day and find you have a couple extra days at the end of the month, children love to repeat, too!

To create your own lesson plan, grab favorites from the past week or month and re-use games and activities. You can also invite children to help recall and plan the additional days of the month; by inviting children into the planning process, you help build both community and confidence.

Other suggestions:

• Plan a field day or outdoor play day
• Review favorite topics, activities, and games from the month
• Finish projects or activities you didn’t get to
• Extend lessons to more than one day
• Use the STEAM Station ideas in the front of each Experience Preschool teacher guide
• Celebrate a holiday or season
• Schedule your days off during those months
• Invite special visitors into the classroom to present or read stories
• Have a free play day
• Plan a movie day
• Start the next month’s lessons

Experience Curriculum makes planning your monthly lessons easy but each educator needs to customize it to work with their program and environment. Be sure to plan for flexibility! Give your schedule and monthly lesson plan a try.

Be consistent as possible, but flexible as needed. We know the days are full and things don’t always go as planned but having the plan layed out and communicated, helps you accomplish your goals.

If something in your plan isn’t ideal, adjust as you go along or make a change for next month. Don’t be discouraged, the days are full and the work is important. You’re doing great!

Watch for more posts in this series of organizing your month, weeks and days with Experience Curriculum.