Benefits of an Annual Plan

One (and there are more than one…) of the nerve-racking aspects of becoming a teacher is my fear I won’t teach my students everything they need to know. All the information we have learned regarding teaching over the past year (!) has been fantastic, but I can’t help wonder, “How am I going to teach it all?” By working on an annual plan I am actually feeling more confident in my ability to teach everything I am expected to. In class it was mentioned that our annual plan will essentially be an outline, and over time will grow to be a more complete plan, with more resources for the different units. I love the idea of building upon one section of the annual plan each year until, eventually, you have a detailed annual plan that you know to be successful in the classroom. At times, however, I can’t help but wish I could fast-forward past the time of unknown, but I have yet to see the invention of the time machine anywhere in our textbooks.