Differentiated Lesson Plans

Two weeks ago I shared this photo on Instagram and it immediately inspired this blog post.

Just like most of you, I am CONSTANTLY changing my lesson plan format, or so it feels. I'm pretty positive that at the start of every school year it takes me 3-4 format drafts before I finally get to 1 that is going to meet my needs for that school year and that group of students.

The biggest hurdle being that I have to differentiate for each child. Different work boxes, different cookie tray activities, different work binder pages (when we get there), and then during each part of our routine each child needs something different, such as sticker reinforcements for sitting, a hand fidget, or even an edible reinforcement schedule.

How do you put ALL of that into your plans each week without driving yourself mad over the oh so little details that are so very important. On top of that, I REALLY prefer to be able to hand write some things into my plans. It's just easier that way to be able to flip around, or set 3 weeks worth of planning pages out in front of me at a time and fill in activities as I come to them.

A lot of you wanted to know more about this set up. I've snapped a few more of the other pages so I can show you my whole set up and at the bottom of this post you can download the same template for free.

As you can see my plans are set up with the daily schedule/routine to the left where I've typed some specifics if they apply. Then I have the student names across the top and in each box are the accommodations/specifics for that child during that part of the day.  What's so great about this set-up is that I only have to adjust these sections maybe 1-2x per month as reinforcers, etc change for students.

This is the next page, continuing our morning routine. I have the box at the bottom for the mid-day routine and then the next two pages of my plans continue with the afternoon group of kids, but the routine repeats. The next few pages of the plans are what changes frequently and I hand write those parts in.

I will print my plans out for the whole month at one time. This way as I'm planning activities if I find something I want to do, but maybe not for another week or so, I can go ahead and write it in for that week.

In the photo above Smartboard #3 is typically something planned from Starfall, I just had not written it in prior to taking this photo. Smartboard #1 is always a book, or an adapted book and then I look for something online to pair with it, either a re-telling on YouTube, or a song.

In order to share this with you, I've basically just left you an empty grid with some direction of what to fill where. It's still in power point format so you can add more boxes if you have more students. That could mean having to put cookie trays on one page and work boxes on page versus having them together like I do. (Not to sound cold, but I am not willing to make any changes to this template for you. You can download it and tweak it as you need it.) Click {here} to download this template to give it a try!