Extreme Curriculum Mapping

Wow.  The weather has been absolutely humid, hot and miserable this week.  In an old school with no air conditioning this is a recipe for restless children and a teacher that is beyond ready for the weekend!

Last weekend I worked really hard mapping out my new Math and Language Arts curriculums to try to figure out what the heck I am supposed to be teaching.  I learned that apparently I am a hands-on/ visual learner.  First, I wrote all of the standards out on color-coded Post-it notes:

Then, I quite literally taped a grid onto my wall and started sticking the standards where the curriculum recommended they should be. 

Here's a closer picture:

 

You can see the Post-its for months, quarters, days off and the stickers that were the "keys" for the subject area colors.  I am such a nerd!

The good news is that it helped--a little.  I have a much better grasp of this quarter and a fairly good idea of what direction to go in.  The bad news is that this map needs to stay up all year.  Ha!  I still inexplicably feel like a brand new teacher even though this is my fourth year teaching first grade! I need to figure out the "how" now that I've got the "what". 

This weekend I would like to finish the quilt I bought and started for my son before he was born.  Over a year ago.  Instead, I think it's going to go more along the lines of something like this: