You can learn how to make your own curriculum map template with a free five day video tutorial curriculum mapping series. Link it to lesson plans, group lesson plans, textbook pages, websites, & other resources. (Updated July 2025.)
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So you’ve decided to create a curriculum map for the year ahead. Wise move!
But maybe you don’t know where to start. If you do a search online, you’ll find plenty of posts for curriculum map templates, plenty of articles about curriculum mapping, and maybe even a “how to” course or two.
This post was updated on September 12, 2025.I’ve searched myself. What I found was that most of the curriculum map templates weren’t very complete or in depth. Most of them were more of a Year-at-a-Glance or a simple Scope and Sequence document . I wrote about the difference between a curriculum map and a year at a glance in an earlier blog post.
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How I Made My Curriculum Map Templates
The first curriculum map I ever made was basically a year calendar with the subjects I would cover written on the squares for each month. You can imagine how helpful that was. (Not at all!) I knew I needed something more comprehensive.
The best curriculum maps are the ones that we want to use. If we don’t use them, they’re just a waste of time, right?
Every teacher has a different way of running a classroom. Therefore, the curriculum maps we want to use are the ones teachers create themselves and tailor to their own teaching style and grade. I wrote about that in a previous blog post about how the best curriculum maps can transform your teaching.
After years of tinkering and figuring out the best curriculum map for me, I came upon a system that works and is adaptable to everyone at any grade level. It incorporates several strategies, but all put together, they can really make your teaching life easier.
In fact, after I started using this curriculum map, I cut my planning time down to about an hour a week, which was mostly just making copies, unjamming the copy machine, and prepping other materials. Prior to that I was spending five or six hours a week.
Planning Your Year With a Curriculum Map Template
With this curriculum map template in Google Docs (TM), I spent a week before school started and planned out my entire year. Another teacher told me she was able to create her full year curriculum map in one evening!
The planbook pages in this template link right into the curriculum map. But you can link the curriculum map to your planbook pages with other digital teacher planners, like this one. Each week, I would simply take a look at what was on the curriculum map for that unit, tweak and copy it into my lesson plans for the week, and I was good to go! It was like teaching nirvana.
Doesn’t every teacher strive to find teaching nirvana?
I didn’t fall behind during the year because of two things.
- One, I knew about how long the units would take.
- Two, I set up a week at the end of each unit for reteaching, review, and assessing the content. This was perfect for catching up on things, giving student extra time to make up work, and to have time to do the fun things that we sometimes sacrifice in order to meet our standards goals.
I want to share that system with you, because it can make your teaching so much easier and less stressful. Sure, you’ll need to make an investment in time up front, but you’re going to love the extra hours and less stress during the school year.
Learn How to Use a Curriculum Map Template with Video Training
I created a five day video curriculum mapping series. Best of all it’s FREE! (Teachers deserve more free things.) You can get the five days worth of videos in your email along with a workbook. You’ll be creating your own curriculum maps as you go through the video series.
In the videos, I show you how to create all the templates. I show you what resources to gather before you start planning. I show you how to link the documents to your planbook. Basically, I show you how to organize your planning so that you never have to spend a weekend planning again. (Unless you want to do that!)
If you don’t want to create your own curriculum map template, (because it is a bit of work to make them!) you can buy mine at a low price.
Then you can skip the whole task of creating all the tables and documents and get straight into planning. But you don’t have to do that.
If you want to have this 100% free, you can do it!
More Posts About Curriculum Mapping
- How the Best Curriculum Maps Can Transform Your Teaching
- Myths About Curriculum Mapping You Should Never Believe
- Curriculum Mapping or Year at a Glance; What’s the Difference?
If you think this could be helpful for other teachers you know, please share this post with them!
Happy planning!
P.S. Use this to start streamlining your work today, because every teacher deserves the weekend to relax.