Lesson Plan Sunday

  It is currently Sunday afternoon and I am sitting as close to the sun as possible while working on lesson plans for the week.  I've been looking for the most efficient lesson planning strategy and have found for me just paper and pencil work the best.  I've tried planbook.edu and a couple other lesson plans sites but haven't found one that allows you to structure lessons the way I like them.  I'd love to hear how everyone else plans lessons.
   The best way I have found is to create a little map on paper that outlines the standards I want to teach that week along with the topics and vocabulary I want to cover.  Then I go back and write down what day I want to teach them on.  After I know what topics I want to teach then I go through my resources and lay out everything I want to use in order.  The last thing I do is actually write up the lesson plans onto a template to turn in to my principal.

Snow Day Planning

    Today was supposed to be a required teacher workday but instead it is a snow day.  Silly me didn't believe the weather and didn't bring home any work to do.  In attempt to get something done I've been working on my Ancient Greece unit.  For each country I teach I usually go into the geography, daily life, religion and then go into more specifics from there.  I've noticed my students struggle with seeing how these different topics relate to each other.  For example, my students understand geography and how it impacts a country but how geography impacts daily life or religion is harder for them to see.
   For Ancient Greece I am planning on having my students tell a story about a person living in Ancient Greece.  To start out the unit they will be creating paper dolls that I found online and naming their character.  I am also giving them a brainstorming sheet to fill in throughout the unit that will help them later tell their story.  I am going to grade the story as a means of summative assessment instead of giving an open note test like I usually door.  I'm hoping this assignment will help my students think more critically and see the connection between each area they learn about.
   To find the paper dolls I'm using click here. If you'd like to see the story map I made to use click here.   What strategies do you use to help students think critically in the content areas?