Customized Teacher Planner

I'm currently on my last week of summer vacation and I'm not doing a whole lot of relaxing right now. This is the time of year for teachers where we are frantically trying to prepare our houses, families, cars, classrooms, etc., for a fast-paced school year. It's kind of like nesting, but on steroids.

Don't feel sorry for me though, because I've had a fabulous summer and have had lots of rest. I'm pretty happy with the summer I've had.

Throughout my summer I've done little things to help me get ready for school, and have been chipping away at my To Do list. Of course I started with the fun stuff though. For me, it was my Teacher Planner. I had been drooling over Tiffany Ford's Lesson Planner from this post, and I took the plunge and ordered one of her planners from her Teachers Pay Teachers store.

I haven't used a traditional lesson planner for years because I get so annoyed with the whole write, erase, rewrite process. In this digital age, I just can't justify the waste of precious time. I even tried out Erin Condren's Lesson Planner and not even that cuteness could sway me. 

What sealed the deal for me with Tiffany's planner is the fact that I could type my lesson plans into her templates and print them out. This way I have the cute without the crazy.

You can use the editable planner in a plain old three ring binder, you can bind it, or you can go the Martha Stewart route.

You can guess what I did.

I have a love-hate relationship with Martha Stewart.

I love that when the planner is open it lays flat, and it is very similar to a spiral notebook in the amount of space it takes up.

Of course if you go this route, you need the specialized punch, and it's probably not for everyone. Like I said, a three-ring binder works fine, but since I've done that, I wanted to give this a try.

You can find the punch and the basic system at Staples online or in the store. My store didn't have the punch on hand, so I ordered it online.

Here are the sections in my notebook. I didn't love the Martha Stewart dividers, so I took plain old dividers, cut the hole punched edge off, and punched them with the special punch.

Since I took these pictures, I've added more sections for the courses I teach.

I have those sections behind this Curriculum Map tab.

Here is an example of what that looks like for me.

And here are even more detailed plans that I follow pretty carefully when I'm planning my week. I like to make notes about homework assignments, videos I've used, notes, etc., so I don't forget what resources I have that I can pull in. It's kind of anal, but it's how I roll.

My actual weekly plans go here.

I went ahead and typed in days off, early release days, and anything else that I know about ahead of time, and then I printed a paper copy so I could sketch out my plans when I'm planning with my team. When I actually go to plan for the week, I'll make those changes in the Power Point file and print them off as I go.

In my planner you'll see only a one-page spread since I teach secondary and don't need the two-page spread. I ended up just deleting those extra pages.

These are the title pages in the Curriculum Map section for the courses I teach.

I have one more, but for some reason I didn't take that picture.

This is something else I added just this year. Previously I was using Standards checklists to keep track of when I taught certain standards, but this year I'm going to use the "I Can" statement format for those standards. I'm moving to these "I Can" statements because they're what I'll be using with the kids. 

If you're interested, I have the "I Can" statements and the Standards Checklists for 7th and 8th grade in my Teachers Pay Teachers store, and they are super cheap ($1.50).

This is the other thing that I've been working on this summer. They are "I Can" statement posters for the Common Core Standards for math. I made sets for 7th and 8th grades and they are $5.00 in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

There are three different styles and this is what they look like.

I call these rainbow lines.

Chalkboard, of course.

And plain. I ended up printing the plain version for my 7th grade classes so that they would look different than my 8th grade classes' statements. I printed each strand on a different color of neon card stock.

This is how I was planning on displaying my "I Can" statements, but it turned out to be a total flop. The longer it gets, and it will get longer in some units than others, the more crooked it gets. Just looking at it makes me twitchy.

I've resigned myself to just slapping them up on the wall as we hit them. I'll show pictures of that later. It's still coming together.

I've been doing a lot of printing this summer, and I was reminded today of how much better the print quality is when I use Photo Paper as compared to regular card stock. I don't use it for everything, just posters and things I want to display.

For example, I used photo paper for my 8th grade "I Can" statements because I used the chalkboard design. I just used regular card stock for my 7th grade standards because I used the plain design.

This is an example of something I printed for display. It's a vertical number line and I will laminate it before I hang it up. As you can see, the copy at the top is not as sharp and the color is not as vivid as the one on the bottom.

Here's another example. Can you tell which one is on Matte Photo Paper and which one is on plain card stock?

Last picture, I promise. As I mentioned I have been printing like a mad woman. I've used more than ten ink cartridges this summer and I don't want to stop and figure out how much money that is.

This picture happened to me twice in two weeks, both times at Walmart.

I bought ink cartridges that had no evidence of being tampered with at all, but when I opened them up there was an empty Setup Cartridge. This is not an accident. Some dishonest person went to the trouble of opening the package very carefully, weighting the empty cartridge with pennies, and sealing it back up.

Thankfully Walmart exchanged them for me, but I was ready to open a can of Whoop A** on them if it didn't happen. That would not have been pretty, so I'm just glad that I didn't have to go there. 

Teachers Pay Teachers Sale!

For all my Teacher readers, Teachers Pay Teachers is having their Back-to-School Sale August 4th through August 5th, and everything in my store is an additional 20% off. That means you can get 28% off with the TpT discount.

All you have to do is load up your cart and enter the promo code BTS14 when you check out. Don't forget the code, or you'll be sad. :(

Click here to check out my store on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Getting There

 

Whew! What a crazy couple of weeks I've had. I've been in my classroom a lot, and just this week I'm starting to see some things come together enough to take some pictures. This post is going to have a lot of pictures, and believe it or not, I'm not even ready for my classroom tour yet. Cray cray.

First up is the area of the classroom where students should visit after they've been absent and they need to collect their assignments.

Last year was the first time I used the calendar method of posting daily assignments, and it is definitely a keeper. Like many of the things in my classroom, I've lifted this idea from other teachers. My absolute favorite thing to do is to troll other teachers' classrooms to get ideas. It's like Pinterest in real life.

Each class has it's own calendar, but I also have files directly under the calendars where students can find assignments that they have missed. I try not to keep much more than a week back of assignments, because I don't want to encourage extremely tardy assignments. Students can still make older assignments up, but they have to see me before or after school to get those assignments.

The other thing I keep in this Assignment File is my teacher copy of the Interactive Math Notebook. That way students can get their notes caught up as well. It's important that they have the information, and they are graded on it, regardless of whether or not they were present.

This was one of those quick, but extremely gratifying Pinterest inspired projects. It pretty much speaks for itself.

This is another Pinterest inspired project that seriously makes my heart go pitter patter. I have my crayons sorted by color on the left, and my colored pencils on the right.

I wanted to do this for a couple reasons. The first is because it's just so pretty and that just makes me happy. The second is because the kids take so ding dang long trying to find their colors, that there always seems to be a traffic jam at the colors. I can almost feel my blood pressure escalating on days when we are pressed for time.

Um, every day.

I had to go to two different Walmarts to find enough drawers to do both my crayons and colored pencils. I'm sorry if there are none left for you. If you go to look for them, there are 3-drawer versions and 5-drawer versions. If you want to do the rainbow, you'll want to get the 5-drawer versions.

The teachers at my school have been busy completing Pinterest inspired projects for their classrooms all summer, and just this week we've been at school at the same time and we squeal over the things we've done. I can't tell you how many times we've squealed "I saw that on Pinterest!" It's pretty funny.

I sorted my markers too, but since they don't get smaller with use like the pencils and crayons do, I opted for the cheaper route of spray painted tin cans within a basket.

I've been a little label happy this summer too. I used the template from Ladybug's Teacher Files for these particular beauties. They are free, by the way. Follow the link on her blog name to go to them. I printed mine on colored card stock. 

I made a bunch of these in Power Point with the Circle Shape tool and my favorite font of the moment, Sketch Rockwell.

Same deal with these, but on a smaller scale.

These trays are where students turn assignments in. Would you look at that dust?!!!

It's like my house that I've been neglecting all summer, because yuck. I loathe dusting. It's so pointless.

That's a lot of labels there. I was obsessing over how I was going to indicate which period was on each shelf, and I came up with this idea. I sure hope it holds up.

I cut a little rectangle out of the labels that was just large enough to slide one side of a binder clip through. Then I just clipped the label to the shelf with a tinsy little piece of a poster strip to the inside of the underside of the binder clip so that the label would sit at a ninety degree angle to the shelf. 

Whew! Run on sentence. I think that sentence needs a comma or two, but I'm not sure where exactly. Pretend it's perfect.

Anyway, the poster strip piece was on account of my OCD freakishness could not handle wonkily askew labels. I know my limits.

This is just a little step back view from that corner section.

And the other side. Surely you've noticed stray cords and such in my pictures. Let me explain. The part of my classroom that I'm not showing you yet looks like it's been hit by a tornado. Trust me, my neighbor teacher, Betsy, has exclaimed several times this week that my room looks like it's been hit by a tornado.

I'm not really a tidy worker. It always gets scary bad before it gets better. That's because when I unpack I just drag everything out into the middle of the room and then bounce around, ping pong like, working on things. It takes forever to accomplish anything because I keep getting distracted and half finishing things.

Still trying to figure out how to make that ADD work for me.

If I could just concentrate.

I started my bulletin boards on Monday. I got this hair brained idea that I was going to use fleece to cover my bulletin boards. Well, I was at school until 9:00 Monday night because the fleece was just a little too thick for the cheapness of my bulletin boards, and my staples kept sproinging off the board. You probably don't want to hear this, but I had staples in my underthings when I got undressed that night. Not cool.

Anyway, it's a good thing there were no kids around because I was whaling on my stapler like I angry eyebrow my students not to do. It was so bad that I thought maybe my stapler was broken, so I went to Staples to buy a new Stapler (ha ha, that's funny).

And it was not my stapler dang it! It's my stupid bulletin boards. 

And I guess it's okay that I have two staplers now because I'm sure I'm just going to break one of them anyway. They just don't make staplers like they used to.

Or do they? Were staplers ever awesome? I've never owned an awesome stapler before. Well, except for my electric one. I actually have an electric stapler so the kids don't have to touch my staplers. If they touch, they break.

Anyway, since I'm going off on a tangent already, let me just finish telling you about my electric stapler. It's awesome. I have to angry eyebrow instruct the kids on the proper use of the electric stapler every year, telling them that they cannot play with it, it's a privilege, blah, blah, blah, and I better not ever hear them using two staples in a row or else they're going to be paying me a nickel for each wasted staple. Because they're so expensive and I only make ten cents a day.

You see, I know boys, and electric staplers can sound like a machine gun if you repeatedly put a piece of paper under the sensor to see how fast they can staple. Don't ask me how I know, I just know.

After that ordeal, it took me another three days to get around to finishing the boards.

This board went right back up because it's one of those things that I repeat until I'm blue in the face. Now I just point and sigh. Not really, but I can if ever I'm that weary.

I know Anne Alagna, an internet stranger, is going to give me crap about the unbalanced look of this board, but I just wanted it done at this point and I was tired of fighting with the sproinging staples.

Deal with it, Anne.

If it gives you any comfort, I completely stapled the pads of each of my index fingers. Completely. As in I had to pry the staples out with pliers, and I felt the flesh squeakily, reluctantly give way like a raw steak.

Too bad I don't teach science, right? Kids love that stuff.

Maybe I can recreate it for a special lesson. I just have to find the math in it. I know it's there, it's everywhere.

This board is near and dear to my heart because I super big, pink puffy heart LOVE Divisibility Rules. They save lives, man.

I should probably be kicked out of the Bulletin Board Club for this one. I totally popped out a bulletin board kit and slapped the whole shebang up there Willy Nilly. You can tell, can't you?

Super Skillz I have. I know.

That's it for now. I'm delirious with exhaustion. My plan, although you should never hold me to it because of that time-space continuum deficiency I have, is to get back on here Sunday evening, or Monday-ish, to share with you the progress of my vinyl white board grid.

Durable Textbook Covers

On the first day of summer vacation I got together with the math teachers at the new school I'm moving to, and they told me that every year they teach the students how to make textbook covers with a paper grocery bag and Duck tape. I was so impressed with the idea, that I went right out and bought myself a large variety of Duck Tape.

I have impulse control issues.

I seriously  cannot believe how many different patterns are available. Or how little comes on a roll, especially the fancy stuff at Michael's. Or how expensive it can be when you have impulse control issues.

Geesh. I think I'm done though. I covered all my Teacher's Edition textbooks. I love that I have two of the same book for two of my classes. I get to keep a copy at home so I don't have to hoof it back and forth to school. Love that.

I grew up making paper grocery bag covers for my textbooks, but I was a little unsure about how to go about covering a textbook with Duck Tape in such a way that is doesn't adhere to the book.

Enter a most excellent tutorial from Duck Tape.

I even cut out vinyl on my Cricut to label my spines. After adhering the vinyl to the spine, I covered it with another layer of clear packing tape to keep the vinyl from moving. I love how it turned out.

That book on the bottom gave me fits with that long title. The only way I could get it to fit was to make the letters in the last word all wonky.

I'm sort of wondering if it's symbolic.

As in "Are you really ready for Algebra, or are you pretty shaky on the whole concept?"

Don't answer that, Math Haters.

I like to label my chapters so I don't have to flip back and forth when I'm all flustered and looking for a page. I'm frequently flustered.

Especially when 30 mostly-taller-than-me students are watching me. It gives me the stress sweats.

So I like to be prepared.

Enter the Post-it Filing Tabs. I buy them in bulk.

A fine-tip Sharpie is the perfect tool to write on them too.

I told you I know about office supplies.

My deep dark secret is that when I was a kid, I was busted for shoplifting office supplies.

No lie.

What kind of freak kid shoplifts office supplies?

Don't answer that, Office Supply Haters.

School Supply Caddy

Today I finished one of my Pinterest inspired projects. Is it just me, or is anyone else out there spending their lazy summer days in a Pinterest induced haze? I sit at the computer day after day, pinning for hours on end, waiting for the motivation to strike me so that I actually get up and make something that I've pinned.

Homework Caddy from The Joyful Organizer

Usually it doesn't happen, but this one has been brewing for awhile. I've been collecting tin cans for weeks on end, forcing my kids to eat Spaghettios and pineapple chunks, just so I can have the precious cans. I've had some competition from Peanut Head too, because he also collects cans so he can do this to them.

He scares me.

Anyway, I've had this project in mind for awhile. I already had this serving plate stand, so basically this project was free, unless you want to count the paint. I'm not going to.

Never mind about the money I spent to fill this thing with school supplies. I have a wee bit of a love affair with school supplies. This is my favorite time of the year, right after Independence Day, when all the stores start stocking up on school supplies.

They make my heart go pitter patter.