This week, I have spent a lot of time focusing on my lesson planning. I always have all of these ideas in my mind and I know what I want to do and what I want my students to learn but I often have a hard time transferring those thoughts onto the lesson plan. I do get them there eventually but it takes way more time than it should. I am looking specifically at the areas of the lesson plans that are holding me up the longest and focusing on becoming more skilled in writing that part of the lesson. With student teaching approaching fast, I know that this is something I have to be intentional about now because I am going to be writing SO many lessons a week. I don't have time to not feel confident in one area and to be stuck when I am writing my plans. 

One area in particular that always seems to hold me up is the hook. I always want to have a really creative, fun, and thought-provoking hook and I seem to often get stuck here and wind up never really feeling satisfied with my hook. For Kindergartners, and really all students, hooks are important. You have that one chance to grab their attention and engage them so a hook is one of the single most important parts of your lesson. I was intentional this week about watching how my CE hooks her students. She often does it with a song or a rhyme that centers around what she is teaching. While I think this is great and I will probably use songs and rhymes myself, I wanted to look into other ways to hook the students. I am finding that visuals work or any sort of short game that gets them engaged and motivated to learn more. You really want to get them curious to learn more and I am finding you have to get creative to achieve that. A good hook can pave the way for an effective lesson. So, I have decided to stop overthinking my hooks. It just has to get their attention and I can work to keep their attention throughout the lesson. 

I have also shifted my way of thinking about writing lesson plans as a whole. I have always written them with other people in mind and with whoever would be reading the lesson plan at the forefront of my mind. Now, I am writing my plans with myself in mind. They are for me to be able to read, interpret, and effectively use as a guide for my lesson. Thinking about how I can actually use the plan to guide me rather than stressing about who is going to read the lesson and what they will think has helped me tremendously this week. I am still obviously following the format and putting careful thought into each part but it is so that I can guide myself rather than the person reading the lesson to grade me!

I am also working hard to meet the needs of my students and brain breaks is one of the needs I noticed while teaching my literacy lessons this week. As Kindergartners, they just cannot stay focused on one lesson for 45 minutes and longer without some sort of small break. So, I have looked into brain breaks this week because that is what is going to be what is best for my students when the lesson is going to run over 30 minutes. The brain break will break it up and allow them time to focus their brain or something else for a short amount of time! Even my CE suggested brain breaks when we were talking about what I could work on in my lessons!

I found some useful research on the topic with some good ideas:

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/brain-breaks-focused-attention-practices-lori-desautels

Let me know what kind of brain breaks you are doing or any ideas you guys have!