Teacher Binder

The new Erin Condren teacher lesson plan book came out today. I tried to make myself buy it (its soooo cute!) but it is just not practical. It is too much wasted space in pretty packaging. I am going to stick with my teacher binder I made last year, and just update it when I know my schedule. It is a bit of work upfront, but really it will be easy to refill each year.

Target binder $8. 1 Inch. I could probably upgrade to a bigger binder if I wanted to hold more "stuff" (grades, rosters, etc). I choose one that had a plastic sleeve cover, so in the future I might take this sleeve off and get a new binder (sans sleeve) and put the sleeve on for protection! I could have written/stickered "Lesson plans" but really this binder is always laying open on my desk, so it is not necessary.

 When you open up the binder, you see my name. New for 2015/16 I have slipped a calendar inside the sleeve. This calendar is $6 at target. I may use this instead of the monthly calendars, which you will see in another picture.

I bought these tabs for a few dollars from target. They are easily removable, and I stuck them to the page protectors. I also bought cute page dividers for about $5.

For each month, I made a calendar (using a word doc template) and I also created a monthly lesson plan overview. This is where I wrote the standards, vocab, etc. If you have someone really looking at your lesson plans, this is necessary. I stopped using this overview by December.

I created this weekly lesson plan page after I received my teaching schedule. Even then, it changed a few times throughout the year. I liked this because if someone walked in, they could see what time it is, and what I was teaching. I actually did not end up using any "morning to-dos" or notes areas. I always left this binder open to my current teaching week. This is great for walk-throughs and I wouldn't have to say "oh my lesson planner is in my bag!" Every monday I would "sketch out" my plans for the week.

For me, it was essential to create this custom schedule, instead of trying to use a pre-made plan. On some days, I teach 5 classes, on some days, only 3. Some classes are 40 minutes, while others are a hour. I switch some grade levels after the semester ends! I would be writing in all of these details in by hand every week if I hadn't gone this route.

Hypothetically a sub could even use this to teach, but I always end up writing detailed sub plans. 

Pouch $3 and extra weekly lesson plans 

So for the new school year, I will need to print out new calendars (if I choose do a monthly calendar, I may just use the pull out calendar I bought from target) and 1 copy of the weekly schedule. Then I just copy the schedule at school using the copier. I already have the page protectors, so it will be very little cost to update this binder for the new year!