Combined Grade Planning

Teaching a combined grade is not always the easiest teaching assignment.  Not only do you have two different grades of students, but you also have two different levels of the curriculum to look at.  Planning ahead is the key to help you make the most out of your lessons - and to make sure that you are covering all that needs to be covered.

Heather teaches a combined Grade 2/3 class.  Her numbers are pretty well split down the middle.  Here is a template she used to help her plan her unit for measurement.

She broke down the unit into four main areas:  General, Area & Perimeter, Capacity/Mass and Time/Temperature.  From there she looked at the specific expectations and then summarized them for each grade.  The grades each got their own colour to make it visually easier to read.  Once she was done, she then highlighted all that was similar in the two grades, and then circled what was different or new to the grade.  This then allowed her to look at the similarities and differences between the two grades, and then helped her zone in on what was different when planning.