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What is a Pacing Guide?

A pacing guide (or curriculum map) is a tool used to organize the curriculum to make sure all of the content is covered.

Being organized makes me happy.  Knowing that I have everything planned out makes me happy.  Knowing that I know where we are going makes me happy.  Knowing what the end goals are and knowing that I have things mapped out to get there just helps me to sleep better at night.

How to use a pacing guide

Use your standards, teacher’s manuals, and school calendar to map out what you will teach.  For me, what this looks like changes every year based on who I am working with or what the school expectations are.  One of my favorite ways to fill this out though is to cut up the standards into sections and literally sort them into months.

Assigning concepts to months does not necessarily mean that is all you teach or focus on that month, it just means that you add lessons and focus on that skill extra that month.  Remember, teaching is a spiraling thing (especially in kindergarten) and so we are constantly teaching and reteaching the same concepts every day.

Keep your pacing guide in your teacher planner so that when you are planning your weekly activities you make sure you are pacing yourself correctly.  Also, revisit and adjust your pacing guide as needed (I do this during the holiday break in December and during Spring Break just to make sure I hit everything.)

Be sure to use some sort of checklists or assessments to make sure kids are truly learning what you are teaching.  Using checklist assessments is a great way to see those gaps and spiral them back into your lessons.

Free Editable Pacing Guide

And great news.  The 2022-2023 & 2023-2034 Pacing Guide is here!  Sign up below and I will email it to you right now!

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