At the end of the 2021-2022 school year I quit my teaching job. There were a number of reasons why I quit. I don’t really want to get into it too much here. It boils down to me loving teaching and chemistry, but not loving all the other stuff that comes with being a teacher. But since I love chemistry so much, and truly feel like teaching is my calling, I’ve decided to do what I can to keep doing what I love.
So in an effort to help both classroom teachers and home school parents and teachers, I’m doing a few things.
Free Chemistry Curriculum Outline
For years, I have been building, teaching, editing and refining my chemistry curriculum. Curriculum planning is one of my favorite things to do. (It’s kind of like a puzzle!) I’ve taught chemistry in a lot of different ways, and thanks to the 700+ students I’ve taught, I feel like this is truly a perfectly tailored high school chemistry curriculum. I had it down in year 3 of teaching, but wanted to give it some time to simmer and make sure it was perfect. And I finally feel like it is. So now I’m giving away the outline for free.
The outline describes what units should be taught in what order. I’ve found that a lot of chemistry textbooks outline chemistry in a logical way, but it’s also not the easiest way for kids to learn it. The big example of that comes from my first year teaching. I went along with the textbook. I taught Measurement and then Matter. In the matter unit, kids need to learn separation of mixtures. And I feel like in high school, you can’t truly understand separation of mixtures before learning Intermolecular Forces. How can you explain chromatography, before learning molecule polarity? In my opinion, you can’t. My first year, I made up the term “molecular magnetism” to attempt to teach it. It was a disaster when I had to go back and undo the teaching I did early on.
So the document outlines the best unit order and the big ideas for each unit. BUT, it also has a link to a LIVE Google Doc. And that’s where things get REALLY good. This outlines my day-by-day lessons and plans. Seriously, every lesson that I teach is itemized in this document. I update the document regularly to add links to blog posts about how I teach these concepts, and links to teaching resources that are both free and paid.
I’m super proud of this document and so happy to share it with you. You can get it here.
Easy to Use High School Chemistry Curriculum
For years, I’ve been using what I call “Baby Notes” in my classroom. They are bite sized guided notes (so not a lot of writing, but a lot of listening). My students have traditionally glued these notes down in composition books we call their Baby Notebook. I’ve taken these notes and again, edited them to the point that I could share them with others. These chemistry guided notes are available in my TPT store by lesson or unit, or of course, the whole curriculum together.
The notes were born out of my school giving me a hard copy limit. But the course was moving so fast (and the kids had an obscene number of field trips). I had to come up with some solution. And half page notes was what I came up with. So I spent the last summer converting these notes into things that could be used by teachers everywhere. The end result was styles of slides, in either Powerpoint or Google Slides. Plus two styles of the notes: both half page for INBs and full pages for teachers that prefer binders.
Since it’s been posted, I’ve had teachers write to me with praise for the curriculum, and it really makes me happy cry. I went through SO much nonsense in my first few years of teaching (during the 1.0 development of the notes) and it’s heartwarming that I can get some chemistry teachers to skip that phase entirely.
And I have some BIG plans for this curriculum. I’m getting some help for a significant upgrade to the notes. Like, it will likely double the value of the notes for most classroom teachers… I don’t want to spoil it, because it does depend on another person for it getting out at my “deadline.” But please trust me when I say, this is a big deal.
Free High School Chemistry Course
And this is truly my passion project. I’ve taken the baby notes and their corresponding presentations and I’m teaching them on Youtube. I got the Youtube channel originally started back during the pandemic and I’m bringing it back to life.
The idea here is I get to teach more people! In fact, I can teach an unlimited number of students. This gives me all the joy in the world! Plus I get to do it with no interruptions. No morning announcements, fire drills or bathroom requests. It’s the best of me!
Teachers can use this to supplement their in class teaching. If the teacher is absent, or students or absent this is a great way to fill in gaps. I used to collect Youtube videos in Google Classroom for my students to use for studying. And with that, students can use the channel and the videos to study on their own. It’s all high school level stuff, so there’s no risk of accidentally learning college level stuff. Well, really there’s no issue with learning college level stuff, but sometimes that can be too much for a first time chem student. Chemistry can get overwhelming very quickly. And lastly, the entire thing is a course in and of itself. Any home school parent or home school teacher can use this free chemistry curriculum.
