My Lesson Plan Experience

I spent a lot of time last summer visiting lots of awesome teacher blogs. From what I saw, a teacher binder was a sure-fire way to succeed in being an organized, efficient teacher. I put a lot of work into making one -- I made customized weekly lesson plan pages, added monthly calendar pages, a student info section, a birthday list page, and so on and so forth. It was FULL before school even started!! I was thrilled, thinking I'd be so organized and that I would keep up with it every week.

Want to know what happened?

I didn't!

I got so many new handout pages from faculty meetings, and I just shoved them into the binder without even hole punching them! It was a mess in there. Around November, I had given up on the binder and it was just laying on the giant pile of junk in the corner of the classroom.

Judging me.

With it's judgmental binder pockets full to bursting.

So since that was a complete and utter failure, I decided that this next year I would simplify. I decided to create a simple lesson plan book that was just for that -- lesson planning. Not for student info, not for birthday lists, not for anything except the basic essentials. And especially, no pockets. None. Zippo.

Here's how the cover turned out:

Nice huh? I thought it was cute as could be. :) I had my school laminate the front and back cover pages so that it would be a little more sturdy, and I printed it on heavy cardstock paper.

On the inside, I only have 4 sections:

1) A page for continuing education-
If you're a new teacher reading this post, here's something that I did not know about until almost the end of the school year. You will have to turn in your CPE information and certificate copies! OH MY GOODNESS. I had no idea, so obviously I just put the workshop certificates into the giant corner pile of doom after every workshop. My suggestion is to write down the name of the training, the date/time, and the location of the event. Also, keep a file folder of all the certificates handy so that you can add to it as you go along. Sorry for the rant. Here's a picture. :)

Lime green! Lovely :)

2) A page for DRA Scores (because it's helpful to keep track during the year for grouping) -

Sorry for the retina-burning sensation caused by a ridiculous amount of orange.

3) Weekly planning pages -
I chose this setup because I prefer the days to be vertical instead of horizontal. It is easier for me to follow. Also, I put just the subject because my old planning pages had the actual time there, which really messed me up on days that did not follow the routine. I was looking into getting a cute Erin Condren planner, but she puts the lesson plan days horizontal. Sad :(

Purple is my favorite color, so obvs I picked purple for these pages!

4) Monthly calendar pages -

The blue color is WAY prettier in person. Silly iPhone. And yes, I did already fill the calendar out through to next May. Don't hate.

My goal for the summer is to really get myself organized and get everything to have its own home in my classroom. I learned from my mistake, and I am not going to let it happen again!

If you would like a copy of the documents shown above, just click any of the photos!

You can also CLICK HERE for the link, if you haven't figured it out otherwise. If the link doesn't work, please, oh please, let me know so I can figure out what I did wrong. Thanks!

I hope this was interesting to you in some way. Maybe it will give you the motivation to minimize like I did. The coil binding was done at Office Depot for only $3 and some change. Not too shabby.

My next challenge? The scary cabinets in my classroom.

Math and Art and random junk closet. The math items are organized by concept (geometry, counting, time, money, weight)

Literacy and Fine Motor. And random junk. This one needs lots of help. I need a professional organizer to come help me!!!

Looks like I will be one busy woman this summer! Thank goodness I have the Optimum Organization linky party that helps me keep my mind focused on a goal. I will need all the support and encouragement I can get. Cleaning/organizing is NOT in my nature.

I'm also linking up with Manic Monday and Monday Made It...because I made my lesson plan book! :) Also, I made a huge mess of my cabinets. Does that count?

If you want to check out the linky parties, click the images below.

How do you manage your lesson plans? 

Do you have any advice on how I should tackle the scary cabinets??

Next Year's Plans

I hope that you are well! I'm excited that I'm writing this new blog post on the big blog hop day! Teaching Blog Addict is hosting some great linky parties, so I thought I'd contribute some of what I've been thinking.

Recently, there's been a ton of talk about Whole Brain Teaching. I think I'm going to try to implement a couple of those concepts! The main one that I want to implement is the WBT Rules.

Students tend to behave better when they have positive rules in the classroom. Some teachers like to make the rules WITH the students. I'm not sure if that's what I'll do my first year, but I do plan on discussing the importance of the rules that were selected. We need to be sure that we do not put "Do not" in front of each rule. As an adult, I know that I can't stand when someone tells me "Don't do this" or "Don't do that!" It's much better if someone asks for me to do something with a kind tone. Using the magic word helps too.

SO this year...I'm implementing WBT to manage behavior in a loving manner. I hope that someone who has done this before can give me some tips. Leave a note in the comments on how WBT has worked/not workd for you!

This rule is the one that really seems to be the kicker in my mind. The students need to learn how to choose to do the RIGHT thing! Guidance is definitely going to be necessary in the kindergarten year. Even in the students' senior year of high school! Positive reinforcement, kind words, and a compassionate heart are what will guide these kiddos to the right path in terms of behavior. Oh, and being firm. CONSISTENT! (Can you say, "buzzwords?")

So since this is a blog hop, I thought I'd give away my rules slideshow. I made it on Beeclip! If you want to learn how to make a cute slideshow like this, you can watch my first ever video tutorial on Beeclip. It's a video tutorial, so it should help you a lot.

Click the picture below to take you to the FREEBIE! Or click this link right here.

My video tutorial this week may not be up until Sunday! Please forgive me! I'm really busy for the next couple days, and not many people check here on Saturdays..

On what day do you want to see the video tutorial?