Backward Planning-Madness or Sheer Genius?

Backward planning... whoa just typing it gives me the chills. Okay backward planning to me initially appears to be a daunting task but upon carefully examination and reflection I realized that this is very familiar to how I planned my lessons for my high-school AND preschool classes. (Hey look at that it is applicable across school grades not just elementary school.) Usually I try to start off with a theme or unit and then try to work out what goals/objectives I am trying to teach and then I begin to write the individual lessons. What I have not had the opportunity to incorporate before was the integration across the curriculum. Wait let me clarify that in preschool we did integrate as much as possible across the curriculum but I did not have EOGs looming overhead either so it did allow me flexibility in regards to time.

In essence I like backward planning strategy but I do think that it is going to take time trying to integrate goals and objectives from different parts of the curriculum into each lesson only because I do not have those goals memorized so it takes extra research and synthesis for me. I also think that the lack of background knowledge (or as what I see as being lack of background knowledge or content area) may hinder the process because usually if I was uncomfortable with the curriculum area I would check my resources first and then see how my goals and objectives would fit which is not the best method.

Yet with practice and experience I think that backward planning will be a strategy that I will incorporate when it comes to planning my lessons and that although it may create some madness for me right now in the end it is sheer genius.