In all the time I have been teaching the outline, style or design of my teacher planner has been something I have changed and adapted over time.
When I first started teaching I just used what everyone else used. The one page outline of my day with enough room to write detailed lesson plans on what I was going to use. I think I even made it in Microsoft word. There may or may not have been some comic sans mixed into that. (I know the horror)
My problem with this was that I spent so much time every single night planning.
As I continued to work I came across Planboard. I was an early adopter of this digital planner. For me, it was the way to go for so long. I loved the ability to move lessons around, plan by subject and see all of the details in multiple views. I still really love this tool for digital planning but as I went back to work after having kids, planning digitally just wasn’t working any longer.
What I began to notice is that I would plan it then not look at it. While I was still planning it out, I would begin to teach without it day to day. Then I just stopped really planning at all…eventually that caught up to me and well…
It wasn’t good.
So back to a paper planner I went.
I wanted to try all the cute planners I kept seeing people using on Instagram. You know the ones…with all the flair pens, and stickers.
I ordered a Erin Condren planner. I had the best intention to make my planner look so cute. I kept that up for exactly two weeks before life hit and I realized that the time to make my planner look super cute was wasting my already limited time.
Still convinced that I really could make the cute planner work if I just tried harder I went and tried a Happy Planner. and…another two weeks the dream of an Instagram worthy planner with all the cute stickers and flair pen flourishes just didn’t last.
But…what I loved about the happy planner was the functionality of a spiral book (I could flip in around like a notebook… the functionality of binder just didn’t compare)
Then I realized that if I purchased a happy planner hole punch I could recreate the functionality with planner pages that I created myself.
I decided that I needed a planning page that allowed me to plan a week at a time. I needed to plan out my language program all together. This would allow me to see my week as a larger picture.
So this is when I created my weekly planning page.
