Monday Made It: August 4

{one}

see the difference?! the entire thing is done now, don't you worry!

Ok, so we did not actually make the fence. A kind gentleman who spoke primarily español did all of the construction (and did a fantastic job, if I do say so myself!), and then quoted us a pretty high number to seal it. Both B & I decided that was a project we could take on ourselves to save some money, so we marched up to Home Depot, purchased materials and weather sealed that bad boy. BY HAND. 

...until I realized that a sprayer is less than $20 (and our brushes were like $9 each...) and picked up one of those to use on the second coat. We worked two days + one morning with my darling father and sister on staining/sealing/whatever, and both days it was well over 95 degrees. Probably closer to 105. Brutal. And of course, we did it between like noon and 5pm each day. The whole time, I told B that when we list the house I am FOR SURE insisting that the phrase "hand-sealed fence" be added in. His response every time was a variation of "Um, we'll see when the time comes..."

{two}

My second project of the week is my teacher planner/organizer/binder. I mentioned in my August Currently that I am fighting off mild feelings of panic and overwhelmingness about my classroom. 

Let me tell ya what: when I printed out that lesson planner and started filling it up with all of my grand schemes and plans for the sweet nuggets that will waltz into my room and demand that I fill their heads with knowledge (... a girl can dream, right?) I felt better. This is what it's all about y'all. My classroom will come along. It will be reasonably acceptable by the time school starts. BUT my kiddos will have things to learn and do that are super fun and engaging and they will all become a part of our classroom community because I will be intentional about it. That, my friends, is the part that I am truly jazzed about. 

Back to the "MADE IT" part: (which again, I didn't actually make BUT I did put together!) Check out this cutie planner from A Modern Teacher. I am loving it. I downloaded one from her last year, but it just didn't fit my needs as a special education teacher so I rarely used it. Nothing against the planner- it was awesome!* I couldn't find the file from last year to reuse it, and I just loved the new colors and patterns + I wanted the forms that matched so I went ahead and bought this year's version. I put it in a 2" binder (overkill? We'll see...) and I really like the way it looks. I also like the options I have for layout, and I LOVE the small group planning sheets. 

*If you are a multi-age/multi-group special ed teacher, I might recommend this guy. I haven't used it, but it would have been a MUST HAVE for next year if I stayed at my last job. It looks like everything I was missing in my life and more.

Keeping it Organized

Um, 21 days until the first day of school...!!

As I mentioned here, I was in a dilemma as to how I'd be doing my planning this year. My job is a littttttle hectic (more on that later) and I'm planning in various and sundry ways for kiddos all the way from PK-5th.

After some thought on what I actually needed to do (plan for two self-contained classrooms with 5 kids, each in a different grade with vastly different IEP goals, and read lesson plans to help accommodate for 12 other students to so they can be successful in their gen ed settings), I decided that I couldn't justify buying any planner that I couldn't customize on the spot.

I went with a Modern Teacher's Chalk It Up lesson planner- I loved how many options it gave me for different styles of planning, so if I decided in the fall that I didn't like the way things were going I could change it up! My main hang up was the overall cost, but it ended up being fairly budget friendly [see break down below].

There are no office supply stores in my little nugget town, so I was going to take all the printed pages up to school and bind the pages with the binding machine, but then it wouldn't be easy to customize. Duh, Bean. I didn't really want it in a binder because they can get kinda hefty to lug around and don't always lay flat very well. But, when I was perusing our local Dirt Cheap, I saw this guy and knew it would be perfect! I could have probably found one of these Five Star Flex notebooks at out local WalMart, but this one was marked 70% of $8.99 and I am always enticed by a good sale.

A couple mornings ago, I spent about an hour printing all of the pages. It could be a much faster process, but I wanted them printed just so, back to front, blah blah blah #teacherprobs. It ended up looking like this:

each month starts with an "at a glance section"...

...then the full month calendar...

...followed by weekly planning pages (there are about a zillion)

Budget Breakdown:

Five Star Flex: $2.70

A Modern Teacher's Chalk-It Up Lesson Planner (Texasstyle!) from TPT: $8.50

Printing: FREEish (because I already had paper and and my printer full of ink was a graduation gift)

Total Money I Saw Disappear From My Pocket: $11.20

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, and am excited to put it to use in just a few days! This coming week holds a day of new teacher orientation AND my first parent/teacher conference. Woah buddy.

Lesson Planning

I am a planning freak. I like to schedule everything and I love a good list. These organized obsessions habits keep my life on track, and make me feel more calm on those crazy days where I don't even have time to pee!

I'm going to be kind of a jack-of-all-trades special ed teacher next year. I'll be working with students who are self-contained, pushed in, pulled out, and in PPCD, as well as their general education teachers and a team of paraprofessionals. Based on that little job description, I've decided that I need to get a planner (and a new pair of Toms for comfy feet as I'm walking all over our little school!) for next year soon. I'm pretty sure I have narrowed it down to three options:

1) Erin Condren's Teacher Planner- I've had her Life Planner for the last 6 months and I love how sturdy and user friendly it is! I actually even used it to do some lesson planning/tracking while I was student teaching. The Teacher Planner seems to be well-organized and designed with a teacher in mind. I've seen tons of positive reviews of this little beauty in the blog world! I like that it's adorable and personalized, has both monthly and weekly calendars (for short and long term planning), handy student checklists, and pages to keep track of student info.

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I also really feel like I know what I'm getting into because of the neat video that explores the planner with Erin and a real teacher! The only drawbacks are the price and the shipping time. While I appreciate that it is customized, the wait time for my Life Planner (about 3 weeks) was excruciating. And, $60+shipping is a pretty hefty chunk of change.

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2) A Modern Teacher's Texas Teacher & Lesson Planner Editable with TEKS- I stumbled upon this cute little option while I was googling lesson planners. It is adorable! I love that it is editable so I can pick which pages and which order I want them in, and I really appreciate having all of the TEKS listed in the front for reference, because I'll be working with ALL of those TEKS next year. I like that there are so many different options for calendars so if I put it in a binder instead of spiraling it, I could potentially reevaluate how each combo of calendars are working for me and print differently the next month. 

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This product is CLEARLY designed by a teacher. There are reteach schedules, a spot for monthly focus TEKS, and a grade book. The only drawback I see to this guy is paying for ink or paying to have it printed. At $8.50, the digital license is a STEAL (especially in comparison to good ol' EC). But, once I add a 2" binder for $10, and print the 100 or so pages (which I'd like in color) for 49 cents each, the total comes to a whopping $65ish. 

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3) The Planbook- I also found this via my trusty friend, Google. I plan on taking my iPad to school to use for daily data tracking, so I initially thought this would work splendidly. However, I'm seeing on the website that it is not totally iPad friendly (but they're working on it). I like that this is designed by an actual teacher, like option #2, and I really enjoyed the video that explained all of the neat features. It claims to totally individualize your plans based on your class schedule and desired lesson components, give you the ability to quickly and easily move lessons around (SO important in the crazy world of teaching). 

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You can also print/email lessons from this platform. It is by far the most cost efficient ($12 for AN ENTIRE YEAR) because though I could print, I wouldn't necessarily have to because I could easily access all the plans anywhere that has wifi without having to save as documents or anything. However, it is not cute. I know that sounds trivial, but I like to enjoy what I'm writing in/on! I also would up a creek without a paddle if I didn't print my plans and Internet was unavailable for some reason. 

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Has anyone used these planners? Any tried-and-true methods from veterans in the planning department? I'd love to hear your thoughts!


**these product reviews are intended to be solely based on an evaluation of my needs as a sped teacher! they all seem wonderful, and everyday i'm glad that people put in the effort to make planning more manageable for teachers!