Lesson Plan Resources for Bilingual Educators

Lesson plan resources are valuable tools for many bilingual teachers and educators. Of course, a lesson plan should not be a rigorous application of how to teach.

However, a lesson plan is a pathway for teachers to know how to navigate through a topic. Likewise, going on a trip, you might need a map, GPS, or a navigation system.

In the broadest sense, these navigation tools help explorers to plan their destination or where they are going. Similarly, a lesson plan helps educators understand how to instruct a particular topic without getting lost or overwhelmed with details. 

Lesson Plan Resources using Themes

There are many lesson plan resources to help educators organize topics and ideas. Is one method the ultimate way to lesson planning?

Of course, you might want to adhere to your school’s policy for lesson planning. If you don’t have a guide to lesson planning, there are approaches to help you get organized.

Using themes such as animals, holidays, seasons, or other general ideas can help you group various topics. For example, if you use a five senses lesson as a theme to learn about the five senses, body parts, and seasons, you might add other components too.

For language, you can add a vocabulary component to understanding the five senses, body parts terms in English and Spanish, nouns, and adjectives. Consequently, for math, you could incorporate learning the numbers one to five in English and Spanish.

Then, in science, you might add hands-on activities to explore the five senses or use a fun learning science experiment. The 52-Weeks of Bilingual Preschool Themes course has a bonus section to help plan lessons for the school year. 

Download the FREE Calendar and Planner with Spanish Activities 2023.

How to Write Effective Lesson Plans?

Organizing a lesson plan is one of the first steps to creating practical lessons. But how do you begin to write one? What are the essential components of a lesson plan?

Like there are many ways to approach lesson planning, there are many different ways to write one. You want five to six comprehensive sections to guide you through the topic.

• First, you want to begin with an introduction.
• This section can be short and brief, depending on how you want to introduce the topic to your students.
• Examples of introductions can include fun videos, inspirational quotes, odd facts or statistics, think questions, or cartoons.
• The introduction serves as a preview of what you will discuss.
• Next, you can lay out the learning objectives and goals.
• You could post these on the board or a slide.
• These learning objectives and goals are helpful for you to know what you need to teach that day or week.
• After that, you can begin planning fun activities related to your topic.
• Ideas can include kinesthetic activities like modeling clay, cut-and-paste tasks, experiments, and using manipulatives.
• Of course, you should see what best fits your class.
• Perhaps, your students prefer more movement at the beginning of a lesson and reading afterward.
• So, gauge how your students learn best to plan your activities.

Evaluating Students’ Progress

A lesson plan is only complete with knowing how your students are learning, or you need to reinforce concepts. The following steps are important in evaluating their learning and making conclusions for your lessons.

For example, you could add exit tickets, assessments (formative or summative), a fill-in-the-blank thought, a short video and think question, or a discussion question with the class. The last steps to a lesson plan are formulating a conclusion and reflection.

Take the time to address what went great for your lesson and the drawbacks. Ask yourself, would you repeat this lesson?

Also, many lessons may work fantastic with one group of students but not for others. Consider what you might need to adjust: accommodations, time, or flexibility.

The Exclusive Member Area for Language Bilingual Learners course has a bonus section dedicated to lesson planning and how to set up one. 

Lesson Plan Templates for Bilingual Educators

While themes and organization are helpful lesson plan resources to lesson planning, a template can also help you in structuring your teaching. As mentioned before, there are many ways to write a lesson plan.

So, use what works for you. Using a lesson plan template is ideal for organizing those fundamental six steps. However, templates are not one-size-fits-all.

Consider what you need to teach your class best. Can you add a section for accommodations?

You may need additional tools for special education students. Consider if you prefer a paper copy and gather your lessons in binders.

Or, use a digital form like Google Drive to organize your classes. Either way, use a template containing six components to keep you organized with each topic.

Also, at the end of the school year, you can take an inventory of your lesson plans. Decide which lessons were the most valuable for your students and which ones you might have to rethink.

Lesson plan resources such as templates can also help you categorize Spanish activities or bilingual ones. Instead of having multiple lesson plans, create a template in English and Spanish to know when to implement dual language instruction. 

How to Develop Lesson Plans for Spanish Teaching

Developing a routine for lesson planning can save you time and help you to focus on your teaching.

• First, start with a school calendar. That way, you can plan holidays, spirit week, assemblies, special events, and occasions.
• Also, if you have short weeks or days, using a calendar can help you decide which topics to cover.
• A calendar and a planner are ideal lesson plan resources.
• Whether you choose a monthly or weekly planner, have one handy to plan your day or week.
• Second, map out the 52 weeks of the year into quarters or a set of three months.
• This way, you’ll also have an idea of when to grade or organize a project.
• Next, narrow down your planning to days and hours.
• Don’t feel overwhelmed by large projects, unexpected meetings, or events; consider each step into smaller ones.
• Once you have a calendar and planner of school events, you start using your lesson plan resources for Spanish teaching.

Schedule time for lesson planning. While the old saying is easier than done, scheduling is just as important as planning.

What are the best parts of the day for lesson planning? Do you prefer the morning, afternoon, or evening? As stated before, you don’t have to plan all 52 weeks of the school year; take one step at a time.

The How to Learn Spanish in Simple Steps series also helps you develop Spanish lesson learning with activities. 

Summary of Lesson Plan Resources

Lesson plan resources are essential tools for teachers to save time and enjoy teaching. You don’t need to feel overwhelmed with many teaching tasks that may drain your energy.

Use lesson planning to devise an instruction plan that is useful to your bilingual students and fun. In the end, teaching should be a fun career that you enjoy.

When you have fun teaching, your students thrive and learn too.