Low Prep + High Impact = Teacher’s Best Friend

It’s that time of year. The honeymoon phase is over, the ice breakers are complete, and you’ve officially started to dive into both curriculum and the student behaviors that appear alongside academic demand. This is often the part of teaching that can make or break both a lesson and a teacher. You’re constantly asking yourself: Are my students actually engaging with the content? Will they retain what they’re learning? Did they really hear me? Is this practice meaningful and rigorous enough? Did I just take a step backwards with my classroom rapport? What just happened? And if you’re like me, that 45 minute prep period is just simply not enough time to reflect on the lesson, make updates and create the next one, print the worksheet, set up the assignment in the LMS, answer the 15 emails waiting, and complete the IEP input request form. Yup…and that’s putting it mildly.

Now, as much as we at Surviving in Secondary would love to have a magic wand that could guarantee every lesson is perfect, every paper copies without a jam, and every IEP input is completed on time—with plenty of data and absolutely no fuzzy language—we know the reality: teaching is time- and brain-consuming.

There are countless decisions to make throughout the day, from keeping students engaged and making meaningful progress toward curriculum goals to figuring out whether the practice you're providing is actually sticking. But not every piece of that puzzle needs to be high-stress or overthought in order to be successful.

Engaging learning activities don't have to require hours of planning, complicated materials, or elaborate classroom setups. Sometimes, the best support is simply having a low-prep, ready-to-use resource that gives students meaningful practice while giving teachers one less thing to worry about. Here are some of our helpful tips and recommendations for making this happen.

Practice doesn’t have to be complicated.

Having twenty steps in an activity does not mean that it is a guaranteed success. Low-prep print and digital activities can provide students with valuable opportunities to practice skills, review content, apply concepts, and demonstrate understanding without adding another major task to a teacher’s plate. When you have practice activities that build routine and structure in your room, it’s an added bonus!

Warm-up time is a great start to your class and allows flexibility in reviewing skills, building routine, and also giving you the first 5-8 minutes of class where you can do housekeeping, like finishing up responding to that last email, or writing that last sentence of input, while students independently complete their work. Check out a variety of warm-up resources here.

The best practice can grade itself.

Low-prep resources can be multi-beneficial. The goal isn’t to add more to your curriculum, it’s to make the curriculum you already teach a little easier to implement.

Using self-checking digital practice activities with a gamified component is a great way to save time while increasing student engagement with the content. Whether it’s a Pixel Art activity, Cipher Pursuit, or Secret Message, these resources can reinforce your curriculum, keep students engaged, and provide meaningful practice with minimal prep.

In most cases, you can set up student access to the activity in their LMS in less than five minutes. Then, when the activity is complete, the self-checking component makes reviewing student work quick and easy, so you can spend less time grading and more time focusing on the next line of your to-do list.

It’s the perfect balance: meaningful digital practice for students and less prep work for teachers.

Not every day is a “reinvent the wheel” kinda day.

We often talk about student engagement as the goal, but there’s another benefit worth considering: teacher breathing room.

Teaching is not new, and teachers around the world have been coming up with creative, effective ways to help students learn for generations. As teachers, we’re naturally wired to think outside the box, try new things, and find better ways to support our students. That creativity is one of the best parts of teaching—but it can also lead us to believe that we have to reinvent the wheel every time we sit down to plan.

The truth is, not every idea needs to be brand new to be effective.

Taking the time to seek out tried-and-true activities and lessons that other teachers have already found successful can be a worthwhile investment in both your sanity and your prep time. Previously tested activities, resources with strong reviews, and lessons that have been used successfully in real classrooms can give you a starting point—or sometimes, they can be the entire lesson.

There is value in finding something that works, making it your own when needed, and moving on to the next thing on your very long teacher to-do list. Your students deserve thoughtful instruction, but you also deserve resources that make your job a little more manageable.

Engagement is the goal.

At the end of the day, effective teaching doesn’t have to mean complicated teaching. Low-prep, engaging resources can give students meaningful opportunities to practice while giving teachers back something just as valuable: time and mental energy. Whether you’re reinforcing a new concept, reviewing before a test, filling a few extra minutes, or simply looking for a break from creating everything from scratch, having reliable print and digital activities in your teacher toolkit can make a real difference. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time you plan a lesson—sometimes, the best choice for your students and for yourself is to use something that already works.

Give yourself permission to save the prep time, embrace the resources that make your classroom run more smoothly, and remember that doing more doesn’t always mean teaching better.