Get Organized: Two Weeks Planned and Ready to Go
For a number of years I have used a Teacher Binder. While I had always used multiple binders for management and organization, never before had I combined those binders into one. Ever since, I find myself more organized than ever before. Literally everything needed for organizing and managing my classroom is inside the covers of this essential binder.
In order to maintain that feeling of organization throughout the summer, I began the process of readying my binder for the next school year at the end of the current school year. The process was easy, I simply pulled out the pages with current student data and information. Leaving me with the components of the binder in place and ready for upcoming school year’s student information. Also before leaving on summer break, I printed an updated cover to reflect the upcoming year along with the new weekly planner and monthly calendars. Once both are inserted in the binder, I am ready to go home and enjoy my summer. Knowing I have this all in place, I can leave feeling confident and organized while I wait for information on my incoming students when August arrives.
I usually don’t receive that information until a few days before school begins, so feeling organized up until that point is critical. All teachers want to feel confident and organized, especially when the chaos of a new school year rolls around. So, what are you waiting for? Start assembling your binder today. To help you get started, in this post, I will show you how I assemble my binder, some of the components I find useful, as well as, additional components I don’t use, but others might find useful. Note, the binder shown in the following pictures can be found HERE.
Before the school year begins, I’d suggest purchasing a large binder. My binder is a 2″ binder. It has always been large enough to meet my needs for the entire school year. Next, print a cover. While there are several possible covers to choose from, I choose to use the customizable cover and insert my name. Because the cover can be customized, you can add any additional text, school name, address you choose to add. If “This Binder Belongs To” is not what you want for wording, select the blank template and type whatever you’d like. In addition, there are also blank spines which can accompany your front cover to complete the look of an eye-catching binder.
After our district switched to an electronic way to take attendance, I no longer had a need for attendance sheets in my binder. But, when I did use the paper attendance sheets, I placed the pages at the front of my binder. This always seemed to be the most logical placement for me, simply because taking attendance was the very first thing I did each and every day. The attendance sheets are available in both editable (Power Point) or write in (PDF) forms. This allows you to either write or type in the student’s names and dates that coordinate with your school calendar. You choose.
This product also contains several different variations on lesson plans. Choose the template that works best for you. Save that template on your device and simply type in your lessons. When a new week rolls around, open the original template and type the new week’s lesson. The first picture below is the template I prefer to use to write my lesson plans. Honestly, to prep for the upcoming year, I print 36 copies of the template (left and right side for each week of the school year), hole punch, write the date on each and put in my binder. This allows me to jot down meetings, test dates, field trips on the appropriate ‘template’ week as those activities are assigned. In this way, those blank lesson plan pages serve as a weekly planner. As I write lesson plans each week, I remove the template pages from my binder and transfer any information that may apply to the week.
I do have to admit, I personally don’t use any of the 3 different calendar options available with this binder. As I said above, by placing the blank lesson plan templates in my binder, I am than able to use those pages as a calendar. I do know there are many teachers who do use the calendars. As a matter of fact, one of the three calendar formats was created because a teacher requested it.The first (below) is a typical calendar page. It is customizable. The other come in PDF format only (below).
This binder product contains so much more. Divider pages, student health information, parent contact information, student usernames/passwords, test data. To see a list of all the additional pages be sure to visit the product page and read the description.
If the style or color of this binder is just not for you, please note I have several other teacher binder styles available. I am sure there is one that is just right for you.
And don’t forget, once you purchase the product, you will be able to download any additions or updates, this includes updated calendars, each and every year for FREE!
