New Lesson Planner - New School Year

Last year, I made the huge purchase of an Erin Condren lesson planner (insert oooo's and aaaaahh's here). I was very excited about it and even more excited when it came in the mail. It was packaged so nicely and pristinely unwritten in. Pretty much a teacher's dream!

Unfortunately, thanks to the difficulty of finding a teaching job and the thrilling process of moving to Texas, I only taught 3 months last school year. I spent all that money on a beautiful planner and got nothing out of it. I know, boo whooo... what a problem to have, right?!

The only pages I really used were maybe 3 weeks worth of the weekly lesson planning pages (the school I worked for wanted digital lesson plans) and the calendars for November through January (the months I worked). I had planned out the rest of the school year according to the school's calendar, so the unused calendars are now useless. Pooooo!

I mean, look at all of those blank pages! I couldn't just throw it away!

In an positive and exciting turn of events, I've already landed a teaching job here in Texas and have been planning things out for the last month or so. When I finally decided on a classroom theme, I went with my tribal herringbone themed line of products. I printed out the matching substitute binder and the IEP binder, and put both in their own 3-ring binders.

After that (and a run to Staples to get more ink for the printer), I decided to unbind my beloved Erin Condren lesson planner and merge it with a lesson planner I designed.

I printed out only the pages I knew I would use and it still ended up being just under 100 pages (front-back).

I laminated the front and back covers, and the tab pages so I could navigate through the planner easier. Let me tell you that buying the Scotch Thermal Laminator was one of THE best purchases I've ever made as a teacher! I really have gotten my $25 out of that thing.

I didn't end up using the lesson planning pages from the EC planner because I didn't want to have to number every. single. date. I did use the pocket folder, sticker pages, notes pages, and a few of the checklist pages in my new lesson planner.

 I was super excited that the book mark attached the spiral binding of the new planner too!

It actually looks amazing. I'm really proud of it! Total investment? $5.49 to get it bound at Staples and probably another $10+ for the clip art I purchased to make the planner. I spent hours creating it and probably a good 2 hours printing it to make sure each page printed correctly. *I may be a tad bit OCD.

It's a thick piece of teaching heaven! The best part of all of this? One lucky Facebook follower got her hands on all of my untouched, loose EC pages for only the cost of shipping.

That's all unused real estate people! How lucky is she? I couldn't just throw it away. On a scale of 1 to hoarder, I'm probably a middle ground conservationist #5. Yeah, that's a thing (I promise). At least someone will get to use those pages:)

What do you use to plan your lessons and keep track of important dates?