Visual Plans (kind of)

So I have been admiring Mrs. Deedee Wills visual plans for a long time. She's definitely one of my favorite bloggers. She started a linky party not too long ago for sharing of the visual plans. I have been wanting to link up for a while but I've not had time to sit down and try to make some visual plans. I'm pretty excited about what I've got planned this week with oviparous animals, so I decided to give it a shot. I only did my reading plans. I figured this was a way to get my feet wet.
You can click on the link to take you to a pdf that has the plans. Within the plans there are several links you can take to find some great resources. There are a couple of freebies. One is from me and I'll talk about it a little more in a minute. There are also links to some great units on TPT that I'm using this next week.

Click here to go to the pdf to find the awesome resources.

Now a little explanation of my freebie. It's an anticipation guide. Did you learn about those in college and then promptly forget about them once you started teaching like me? No, I'm the only one. I hope not. I'm so guilty of learning some great strategies along the way and then forgetting about them once I'm back in the classroom. Our school system has bought a subscription the website www.pd360.com. Have you heard of it? We got an email about it like weeks before we received any training. We then had a day of training and playing on it and I forgot about it. It's a database of professional development videos. I'm sure there is more to it than that but that's as much as I've explored. Yesterday, I spent a little time looking at some videos about differentiated instruction. This is something I've really been wanting to work on this year. I got a couple of great ideas from the videos and I've reflected a few of them in my plans. One of the big things emphasized in several of the videos was giving kids choice. So when they recreate the life cycles of chicken and frogs, I'm going to give them some choices. They can draw it or they can use the cut and paste that is found in Kaci's units.
Then the other strategy was the anticipation guide. The idea is to get the kids to activate their prior knowledge on a topic when beginning a unit. So I created one about oviparous animals. (You can find this freebie in my plans.)

Have you ever used anything like this when starting a unit? Do you have access to professional development like this? I would love some comments, especially on my visual plans since it's my first time trying this out. Be sure to head over to Mrs. Wills Kindergarten and check everyone else linking up.