Common Core Pacing in Language Arts

Every state, every district, every school is at a different place regarding Common Core. My district has been training us this past school year in Common Core.... but this coming September is when we will be implementing it....at least "Phase One." When I say "Phase One" that is because we aren't diving in to the deep end so to speak.
A. We still have to administer the California Standards Test (for grades 2 and up) this coming school year
and
B. We don't want anyone to drown in Common Core.... so we are cautiously starting in the shallow end.

 So today was the first day of summer break...YAY! But wait.... I was back at work with a committee of teachers designing some Common Core lessons. And yes, it would have been amazing to sleep in and go to the beach today instead, but I am excited to be a part of this process.

 Throughout the past school year this committee has been designing the framework and pacing guide of what the new Common Core Curriculum will look like.  We have always been tied to the pacing set by the publishers, but now we are FREE...very exciting news, but at the same time it is a daunting task. And you see the word "Common Core" everywhere you look, but I don't see a break down of what a complete school year looks like.

There has been one book that has been an incredible resource!! This book lays out the whole school year suggesting 6 themes, each over a 6 week period of time.  I like this! These themes are aligned with science and social studies... like this too!  There are suggested texts listed- both literature and informational texts- and they indicate if it is an exemplar text or even if the book is a text from a writer with other works identified as exemplars. Does this not sound great?  There are also samples of lessons and student objectives are clear and the Common Core standards are listed, of course!

Click the image of the book to go to Amazon...

I needed a bare bones break down for each of these themes suggested in the Common Core Curriculum Maps book. I think I saw this actually on another site, but I am not sure who or if that is even true?!  I wanted to just look at everything in one shot so I typed the theme titles on half sheets. I wrote a few key words under the theme title. I want to use these on buckets to start sorting some of my classroom books and to be able to look at the school year in a glance.

As of now, but the summer is still young, my plan is to use the themes and breakdown set up in this book and then make any needed changes for the next year. There are already a few things that I want to change up, but I love having this as a place to start.

I have typed up the summary of Common Core themes for grades K-2- just click on the picture:

As I dive deeper into this I will share more lessons, pacing guides and information! If you have any books  that you have found useful please share in the comments!