How should I prepare to teach a lesson?

We know you're eager to get started, you might even be mirroring Jane's feelings here!

Dear Mystery Science,

Our district just adopted Mystery Science as our core science curriculum for next year, so I want to spend the summer preparing my new lesson plans. I’m a perfectionist and I like to have everything planned out before I try something new with my students! How should I prepare to teach my first lesson?

Thanks,

Jane

We love your dedication! We’re happy to help you get started with Mystery Science in your classroom – and we can’t wait to hear what you think!

We've designed Mystery Science to be intuitive and easy to use, so teachers are often able to jump into lessons quickly after they’re familiar with the curriculum. That said, we know that some teachers benefit from more support at first! We’d encourage you to choose a lesson and explore the following sections of the page to give you an idea of what it will look like to teach it to your students.

Full lessons feature the following helpful sections:

• The video to share with your students
• A summary of the hands-on activity, as well as a shortcut to skip right to that section of the video so you can preview the step-by-step directions
• Suggested adaptations for distance learning if you’ll be teaching remotely
• A list of required supplies, as well as a calculator to help you determine what is required for each student
• Detailed instructions to help you get ready for the activity

We know that some teachers feel more prepared after reading everything ahead of time, so we also have full transcripts available under “Extend This Lesson.” You can view the full list here: https://mysteryscience.com/transcripts

If you’d like to learn about other teachers’ experiences with the lesson, try clicking on “Reviews.” This will give you an idea of what these teachers liked, sometimes including tips, tricks, and suggestions from their own classrooms!

Mystery Science also offers mini-lessons, which are designed so that you can jump right in without any prep time! You can certainly preview the video ahead of time, which would take about 5 minutes. Or if you’d just like to read the discussion question ahead of time, you can simply use the arrow at the side of the screen to advance to the slide with the heading “Let’s Discuss.”

Many teachers use mini-lessons to supplement their science units and find that a combined approach works well. We’d love to hear what works best for you!

Curious to learn more? Here are some other resources you may find helpful:

• Are there additional resources I can use to teach a lesson? 
• Lesson Activity Troubleshooting