The question comes up in the Technology Teacher Talk Facebook Group again and again. “What are you teaching to {insert grade level here} right now?”
So, I put together weekly plans for the tech lab for grades K-5. These plans include everything you need so that the planning is done for you.
These plans reference a sampling of all of my resources to show how they can be used together in the elementary computer lab. They pull from many different resource lines, not any one product or bundle.
So here is how they work:
Any resource you see referenced on the left side in text has a clickable link on the image on the right side that will bring you to a page to purchase the activity if you want to use it with your students. The plans are free, but the activities have associated costs. You’re welcome to use the plans to inspire your own planning without using my resources.
Click here to register for the free resource libraryand download the PDF versions.
(Once you’re registered, navigate to https://brittanywashburn.com/free-resource-library/try-2/to download all 4 quarters)
Each week’s visual plan includes:
- I Can Statements
- Warm Ups
- Main Activity
- Early Finisher Activities
- Back Up Plans
Here is week 1. All of the resources I am using are linked (to get the clickable PDF version of quarters 1-4, register for my free resource library and then find the PDFs in the TRY section).
In addition to not having to figure out which activities to complete each week, these lesson plans also give you an overview of how I weave in other great activities along with my elementary technology curriculum.These plans are designed for a 45 minute session once a week. About 85% of students complete the main activity in this amount of time. I always remind them that if they finish a lesson early they can go back and finish up previous lessons.
As you can imagine, each year ends up a bit different due to calendars and school schedules. With these plans so well mapped out I’m able to simply move activities between weeks as needed. If the teachers at my school want to team up for a few weeks on a collaborative project, I just slip it into my plans and move other things around.
The I Can Statements are just one that works for that lesson for the week. I usually display a few for each grade level so that students can see the big picture of what they are learning. I wrote a blog post about Tech I Can Statements here if you’d like to take a look.
The Warm Up activities are a mix of Tech Themed Read Aloud Books (amazon affiliate links), Tech Themed eBooks, demos of the lesson, whole group interactive whiteboard games, review of a previous concept, and typing practice for the older students.
The Main Activities come from my resources, including many weeks of my elementary technology curriculum. With over 900 digital resources now, these lesson plans pull from all of my resources, not any one series or bundle. I did this to show how it is possible to mix and match everything. Feel free to use what you like and leave what doesn’t work for you. Every resource is linked in the pictures down the right side.
The Early Finishers activities are great learning game websites, reading through the classroom library picture books, some offline printable tech activities, and finishing work from previous weeks.
The Back Up plans are an offline option for when the tech doesn’t cooperate. I suggest many tech board games, robots, and printable activities that are great to have on hand for situations like this. The back up plan doesn’t cover the same standards as that week’s lesson always so if you need to use one, make sure to move around your planned lessons to fit that standard in another time. Buy the whole back up plans bundle here.
Having it all visualized really helps me and makes my weekends so much more relaxing.
You might have noticed that I didn’t link to any standards. I want this to be as flexible for you as possible so you can match up the skills with your own state’s technology standards. The I can statements will help you see which of your standards fit, though there are always multiple standards being worked in in every lesson.
How the Clickable Tech Lab Lesson Plans work
When you download the clickable PDF versions, all of the images link to where you can purchase the resource, whether through my site or on Amazon (for the books and the tech toys).
Use these weekly plans to get ideas of what to work on with your students. This is certainly not the only way to teach these units and we always have to be flexible with our schedules because things come up.
My goal with this is to free you up to take care of the other important things in your tech teacher life. Don’t let your lesson plans stress you out!
I hope this helps to get you started. Click here to register for the free resource library and download the PDF versions.
