When you’re planning out your lessons it can be tempting to go week by week. And, for some things that’s the best way to do it. But when you’re looking at your lesson plans as a whole, it makes sense and saves time to use monthly lesson plans as an overarching theme for the entire four-week period.
If you have never thought about using monthly lesson plans to guide your instruction over the course of the school year, you may want to consider it. Here’s how and why you will never go back to planning week by week.
Using Monthly Lesson Plans in the Classroom
Now when I talk about monthly lesson plans, I don’t mean lessons that take a month to complete. I am talking about lessons that go together to create an overarching theme or idea for the month. These lessons address the standards and skills students need to learn and practice, but they do so in a way that makes them more cohesive.
But…creating those types of cohesive lesson plans for the entire month can be a lot. And, as all teachers know, there’s rarely time for anything let alone a plan that requires a lot of pre-planning and researching.
That’s why I created Monthly Lesson Plans to use in the special education classroom.
These monthly lesson plans contain 12 activities and experiments that can be used throughout the month to help students excel. They focus on ELA, math, and science.
What’s in a Monthly Lesson Plan Set?
So, what exactly is in a lesson plan set for the entire month? Is it just 12 pages of activities listed in order? Nope! In fact, most of the monthly lesson plan packs contain over 125 pages of printable adapted readers, hands-on activities, and more! They are filled with almost everything you need to organize and teach throughout the month.
March’s Monthly Lesson Plans
It’s always good to see an example of what’s in a monthly lesson plan. For the month of March, the following activities are included in over 140 pages:
What is included in March’s Lesson Plan Pack?
- Rainbow Fish Book Companion
- Rainbow Fish Craftivity
- Rainbow Fish Writing Activity
- Sink or Float STEM Activity
- BONUS – Build a Boat STEM Activity
- Life Cycle of a Shamrock Adapted Book
- Life Cycle of a Shamrock Flip Book
- Sentence Puzzles (6 total puzzles)
- Rainbow Ring Science Experiment
- Rainbow Shamrock
- Lacing Cards
- Basic Money Task cards
- Old Lady Swallowed a Clover Adapted Piece Book Set
The activities are tied together with an overarching theme, but still provide the practice and rigor that students need.
Not only do pre-made Monthly Lesson Plans help your students, but they save you time and money as you have everything you need in one location.
What Other Teachers Think About the Monthly Lesson Plans
Teachers are amazing at using lesson plans in different ways and they’re rarely shy about describing their experience with a product. So, here’s what others are saying about the Monthly Lesson Plans and how they’ve been helped by them in the classroom.
“Love these units! They are fun and can be completed in person or remotely. They made engaging binders on screen a lot easier!”
“I love these units! They have work that is able to be completed but in person and online. We use them for independent work and group work.”
“I have really enjoyed using this resource with my significant needs students. They have loved the stories and I like being able to do lots of activities around one book/theme. It’s really helped them to be able to engage with what we are doing.”
“Thank you for this resource! I initially bought it when a series of misfortunate events and illnesses occurred in my life/classroom. I needed something I could print and run with for sub plans and what was quite honestly a crazy week. I have continued to use the Color Monster activity with several of my groups who work on emotional regulation.”
“I am a first-year SPED teacher with both virtual and in-person students. I’ve been struggling to find new ideas to engage both groups of learners. This resource has a multitude of ideas to help build lessons. Thank you!!”
“My students have loved the variety offered each month with the monthly lessons. For me….it has helped provide a multitude of ideas to build my monthly lessons/themes off of. This has been a great find!”
“I love the wide variety of activities and the differentiation of activities. Also, love all the visuals!”
“I seriously love these monthly plan packs – my students have SO much fun!”
“I LOVED this pack! Some of the activities, like the Rainbow Fish activities and book companion, can be easily used in isolation to fit other topics throughout the year! Another great resource from Mrs. D!”
“Love that these come with hands-on tasks and themed projects.”
Use the Monthly Lesson Plans in Your Classroom
If you need to save time planning while still making sure that your students are getting the practice and learning they need, consider adding one of these monthly lesson plan packs to your teacher toolbox:
Or, if you’d like to save a ton of time and money by adding them all to your teacher toolbox, grab the bundle instead!
How can having a monthly theme and pre-made monthly lesson plans make your life easier? Share with us below!
