One of my favorite teacher things to do is curriculum planning, specifically planning a curriculum unit.

Now, before you roll your eyes, close the tab and go back to Instagram Reels, don’t panic.  And listen for just a minute.

I’m a planner.  I’m a control freak.  I like to know what’s coming.  And I think that’s exactly why, as soon as I got a teaching job, I was planning out what curriculum units I might teach during my first year teaching first grade.

But it’s not just about me.  Kids need structure and organization to their learning.  When we just teach a string of random lessons, it’s less effective for kids because they are having to do all of the extra work on how to process and remember that random information.

When we organize the lessons into big ideas or units, it serves as a brain filing system for kids.  Now they know exactly how to organize their new learning and where to find it in their brain when they need it.  Think of it like a learning anchor… similar to anchor charts.

I know you may still have a racing heart and be ready to bolt, but writing units doesn’t have to be that hard.  I have written over 100 units for Science, math, integrated literacy and content units, and Bible units.

And I’m not gonna pretend like it’s always a walk in the park, but there are 4 simple steps that I follow every time that make curriculum planning for units simple, effective and FUN!  I promise you CAN do it.

(Psst.  Feeling stuck with the boring units your district has written for you or are included in your textbooks?  You can totally use this process to elevate the existing units and make it work even better for you and your students while still “following” the district outline.)

Write Your Big Idea

The first step is writing your big idea.  What’s the big idea?

See what I did there?  A big idea is the main understanding or take away that kids must understand by the end of the unit.  It’s the umbrella.  It’s the overarching idea.

It’s not just a student objective.  Instead of, “The students will be able to count to 120,” it’s, “Counting to 120 is useful.”

Instead of, “The students will be able to read and comprehend CVC words,” it’s, “Authors write to tell stories.” or “We read to understand stories.”

Instead of, “The students will be able to name characteristics of birds,” it’s, “The survival needs of animals determine their characteristics.”

The big idea zooms out a bit so that it can be connected to multiple topics, standards, objectives, and even subjects!

Still struggling with writing a big idea?  Here are a few tips…

• Don’t use TSW (The students will) like you learned in college for writing
  objectives.
• Write it like you are writing the topic sentence for an expository or
  opinion writing essay so that it has multiple supporting points available.
• Brainstorm and list key words or phrases (like community, rights,
  responsibilities).  Then write a sentence using as many of those as
  possible (Individuals within a community share rights and responsibilities).

Our big idea was posted on a huge bulletin board in my first grade classroom. 

This is the first big idea board I had (so excuse the ancient picture). I taught in an IB school so we were required to include some IB lingo with it.  But we made it work for us too! 🙂

Here is the next big idea board I used in a new school, new classroom. With wayyyyy less bulletin board space.  I used the chalkboard to post our big idea quote on.

And when I homeschooled my second grader, I included our big idea in our learning space as well, so we could constantly refer back to it and make connections.

Plan Your Essential Questions

Once you have your big idea, you are ready for your essential questions. An essential question is just what it sounds like… a goal that is essential for kids to understand the big idea… in question form!

If we go back to the umbrella strategy, the essential questions (EQ) are the supports for the umbrella.

They still are NOT learning goals.  They are a little bigger.  And they must connect to the big idea.

A unit can have anywhere from 2-4 essential questions.  They can have more, but I find that keeping it to 2, 3 or 4 is much easier for the younger kids to manage.

If I go back to the big idea example I used from my first integrated unit, the big idea was, “Individuals in a community have rights and responsibilities.”

The essential questions for this unit are…

• What is a community?
• What are my rights and responsibilities?
• Who is part of our school community?
• What makes our learning community successful?

Your essential questions need to be smaller in scope than your big idea, but bigger than an individual lesson.  Typically, we work on an essential question for a week or two.

And you may notice from the umbrella example above that the essential questions are listed in the order they will be taught and there is a natural progression of learning happening.

Sort Your Standards Into the Essential Questions

Now you will want to use your district’s pacing guide or your own pacing to decide which standards fall under which essential question.

For this integrated social studies and literacy unit, I added the Social Studies standards for each essential question. Then, I looked through our literacy standards for the first quarter and chose standards that would support the essential question and help develop those social studies ideas.

So, for the essential question, “Who is part of our school community?” I will add reading and writing standards for informational writing and reading.

Getting the standards set in place first ensures that I have my standards in mind when I am planning lessons.  Instead of just forcing the standards to fit into lessons I want to teach and possibly leaving out standards.

Set Your Daily Goals and Lessons

After writing your big idea, listing your essential questions and sorting your standards, you are ready for the “fun” part.

Writing your goals, lessons, and activities.  When I’m in this initial curriculum planning phase, I am just listing the activities or goals or lessons that will help kids fulling answer and understand the essential question.

And, of course, tie back to the big idea.

But I’m not writing detailed lesson scripts.  It’s basically like I’m jotting notes down to myself so that when I get to that week and start the curriculum planning, I’ll remember what I was thinking and can elaborate then.

In our umbrella example, this is the raindrop phase of curriculum planning! 🙂

And, no, there doesn’t have to be exactly 3 activities for each essential question.  I just love symmetry, lol!

For our beginning of the year integrated unit, it would look something like this…

Curriculum Planning Freebie

Now, I have my unit at a glance planned and I can add this plan to my lesson planning file or folder to have handy when I am curriculum planning.   Here’s a FREE digital template in color and black and white for you to use for your curriculum planning.

This unit I used in my example can be found here and I’ve already done the detailed daily planning for you and included all the print and digital materials you need! 🙂

And if you need help pacing out your standards or just want to take a peek at what my entire year looks like, check out this first grade pacing guide that also comes with digital templates to make your own!