Overview of the Curriculum
It may take some time for you to learn how to use the Open Arms Curriculum web site. We think you will find it to be very well organized, but it is also quite complex because of the many features. The directions which follow here should make this easier for you. Print out this page, if you wish, to have it handy when using the site.
As you use the Curriculum, you will be viewing it in these four ways:
- The Annual Plan - The Weekly Plan
- The Monthly Plan - The Daily Plan
The Annual Plan and the Monthly Plans provide the basic framework for the Curriculum They include the following:
- The Monthly Themes
- The Bible Story for each Week, where it is found in the Bible and in selected Bible Story books
- Key Concepts from the Bible story to share with children
- Thoughts for Teachers, to provide background for the Bible Story
- The Memory Verse for the Week
- The selected Alphabet letters to focus on for the Month
- The selected Number for the Month
- The selected Color
- The selected Shape
The Weekly Plans and the Daily Plans will be your working documents. They allow you to create your own, personalized plan for each week, suitable for printing out and posting at your classroom. You will Save each Weekly Plan so that as you go, you will be preserving your own curriculum for the year. The next time you open a given Weekly Plan, it will be the one you saved before.
Activities – In addition to the foregoing, the Curriculum also contains a large and growing list of Activities. You will be able to select and include these as part of your Weekly Plan. You are also able to Create an Activity. include it in your Weekly Plan, and also make it available to other teachers.
How to Use the Curriculum
After you have logged in, you are taken automatically to the Annual Plan for Year A. If you wish to visit other parts of the site, select from the green Main Menu on the left. You can always get to the Annual Plan from the Main Menu also.
On any page, you can click on anything that's rust colored and underlined, and it will take you somewhere helpful. You can also use the Back function on your computer to return to a previous page or window.
Normally, you might use the site in the order in which we discuss it below
Begin with the Annual Plan. If not already there, click on Year A Curriculum on the green Main Menu at the left. The Annual Plan presents the Theme for each Month and the Bible Story for each Week. Most Months provide for five weeks. If the month has no fifth week, you may skip one of the earlier Bible stories and choose the one for Week 5 instead.
Click on the name of a Month to see the Monthly Plan. Check out all the learning items that are designated for the month. The Key Concepts are suggestions from which you can select the thoughts you want your children to take from the Bible Story for the week. If you click on a Key Concept, it will take you to a page that provides additional background for you, both for the Bible Story and for each Key Concept.
To see a Weekly Plan, you can click on a Week in the left column on the Monthly Plan, or you can go Back to the Annual Plan and click on a Bible Story for the Week of your choice.
How to Prepare a Weekly Plan
The Weekly Plan is the primary work space for the teacher. You can complete the plan on your computer by selecting from available choices, or by typing in some wording in a few locations. Your registered name appears automatically as the Teacher in the upper right.
Goals and Objectives can be selected from a drop-down list for each area. Not all blanks need to be filled in. We've kept the choices simple for now, and we plan to add more in the future.
The Book(s) of the Day may simply be typed in for each day of the week.
Do the same for Circle Time. This is usually quite routine for a classroom, but different from one classroom to another. So the Weekly Plan allows for those differences. You can copy and paste your entry from one day to another if desired.
Don't worry about the limited spaces when typing on the Weekly Plan; just keep typing if desired. If you want to see more than is visible on the Weekly Plan, click on the Day of the Week to see a Daily Plan. There the spaces expand to allow more room.
Now it's time to enter Activities for the various Learning Areas. Click on Add to see a listing of available Activities. There you can click on one you like, and it will appear in full on your screen. If you want to add it to your Plan, click on Add to My Plan at the bottom. Its Title will automatically be entered on your Weekly Plan. You can continue to add Activities in this way in the same Learning Area on the same Day, or in another Learning Area or another Day.
How to Create a New Activity
You can also Create a New Activity by clicking on that option. It will take you to a page where you can complete everything necessary to create an Activity and add it to the list of available Activities, and to your Weekly Plan.
Begin by giving your Activity a short, descriptive Title. Then click in the large, empty Word Processing area. There you can describe the Activity so that anyone can learn how to do it. You can use any of the word processing features available to make your text more readable. Remember that it will be available to all users.
Next, select the Month(s) and/or Weeks in Year A when this Activity is to be available. Then select the Learning Area(s) where anyone might want to use it. Finally, select the Age Level(s) at which it may be useful.
Note: Please make the Activity available only where and when it will be most useful. If every Activity is made available for every Month and Week and Learning Area, a teacher will have to sort through hundreds of Activities to find the one desired for a given Week and Learning Area. This will make the effort too tedious and time consuming.
After you have assigned the Activity as desired, then click on Save at the bottom, and the Activity will be added to all of the existing ones, and will be available to every user for the selected Month and Week and Learning Area.
After you have saved the Activity, it will appear in finished form on your screen. There you can review it to see if you are satisfied with what you have created. If you want to change something, click on Edit at the bottom of the window.
To Add your new Activity to your Weekly Plan, click on Add to My Plan at the bottom. The Title will show on your Weekly Plan, and the entire Activity will show on your Daily Plan.
If you wish, of course, you can also print out the Activity in full from this window by clicking on Print Friendly at the bottom.
Then click on Back to Plan to return to your Weekly or Daily Plan.
How to Save Your Weekly Plan
When your Weekly Plan is complete, you need to SAVE it in your own personal library on the Curriculum web site. Click on the SAVE button at the upper left. As you Save your Plan, you can choose to make it available to others, or keep it private. Think about whether you might like to see what some other teachers are doing.
The site will save one Weekly Plan for you for every week shown. The next time you come back to the site and go to a Weekly Plan, you will see the one you saved most recently. Then you can edit it as desired, and Save it again.
How to Print Your Weekly or Daily Plan
While in the Weekly Plan, click on Print Friendly in the upper left. In the window that opens on the left, you can select your printer. Then check the other options available. For example, you may choose to have it print in Portrait or Landscape style. When ready, click Print at the upper left.
You'll see that on a printout of your Weekly Plan, only the Titles of the Activities will show in the Learning areas. However all of your text will show in the Book of the Day and the Circle Time. So you may want to try to keep the entries somewhat abbreviated in those areas to shorten up the printout.
You can also print out the Daily Plan in the same way. Here, everything entered will be visible, including the full text of each Activity. A printout of the Daily Plan can be very helpful for personal use, or for sharing with an aide or with your Director.
Conclusion
With this information, we hope that you will soon become familiar with the Open Arms® Curriculum and how it works. You can also see that it will continue to grow as users add their activities. And we plan to add an entire second year some time in the future.
Please feel free to use the Contact feature on the web site to send us your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions. Working together we can make the most of all the gifts and experience that God has given His Church in the beautiful servants who staff our centers.