Im getting so overwhelmed trying to plan my 3rd grade Language Arts...... :( This is my first year and there is SO much that I need to teach them and I just don't even know where to begin at this point! 

We weren't taught how to make "plans" and both of my mentor teachers were loong time teachers and never planned so I was totally left out of the loop on this!

I've started by highlighting the main points in the 11 page LA curriculum, created a calendar of sorts and am trying to make my units off of that! 

How many units realistically can be covered in a year?

Are your units theme based ie. Biographies, Fiction, Persuasive etc? 

How do you teach conventions within these units? minilesson? Or should I have a unit based soley on conventions?

Do you do writers & readers workshops? How do you set-these up?

Does anyone have any templates they can share? or any info at this point really would be so helpful!

we have a curriculum based units..but we do 6 a year.  I teach 2nd grade so its a little different.

I do about 40 minutes of whole group lessons..then 40 mins of small group while the rest of the room is working on a few things.

PM me if you need more..or specific questions

Een.... are your units pre-determined by your board/school? I wish we had that... and goodness I'm in trouble if we do and I'm just clueless!! :( 

I made a meeting with my old mentor teacher to run what I have through her... I just feel like I'm grasping at SO many things and have no idea if they are right/wrong/ok/no ok?

I'm really hoping she can help me out! My principal just let us know he doesn't care to see all of our plans except for our year-long plans.... so I'm still working away on those!! I don't even know if there are templates for those or what the heck a year-long plan looks like! 

Girlly... I have some resources on year long plans and pacing guides, but they are just suited to orchestra... I'm not sure if they would be helpful to you or not!  (maybe you could just use the template!!) PM me if you want me to email you the files :)

Our units are pretermined by our school.  Hmmm I have never done yearly lessons.  Thats crazyness!!!  I wouldnt be able to do that.  It varies from year to year with different classes on how much I get done.  So crazy!!

I teach middle school, which is a different beast.  However, I do think you should teach conventions throughout the year.  If you are reading something, highlight the conventions in it and do mini-lessons on the convention.  Students are far more likely to retain the information that way.

Thanks pink!! Since I posted this and met my class... I've come to the conclusion that conventions need to be all the way throughout! Especially for this group... they seem to have forgotten everything over the summer... the first piece I asked them to write me was horrendous... capitals in the middle of words, 1 sentence paragraph, no punctuation.. ohhh my... I have my work cut-out for me!!!

I think the best thing to do when you start a new grade level is to find a great teacher at your school or in your district that has taught that grade before and just steal from them :) My first year I got another teacher's outline with rough dates of how long each unit should be which was really helpful - by my second year I felt confident enough to switch it up and lengthen things and cut out other things... but its really hard to start with nothing.

I teach at a K-8 school so lots of my friends teach elementary and know many of them doing reading groups and writing workshops. I would definitely ask the 2nd grade teachers what they did with your kids last year since the kids will already know the protocol for that so it would be easy for them to transition to doing the same sort of thing in your room.

Goos luck!