Erin Condren Teacher Planners!

I have always been someone who loves planners. I love color coding them, highlighting, and covering each page with sticky notes. I knew I was gonna need something awesome for when I became a teacher. My little sister, who is also a teacher, recommended the Erin Condren Teacher Planner.  Now, they are a splurge- but I think it was worth it. I took it everywhere and used it all the time.  Keep reading to see a pictorial review of my Erin Condren Teacher Planner. 

2014-2015 Planner

Above is my planner from last year. There are so many great covers to choose from that you can most definitely find one that fits your style and personality. I love color so I went with rainbow! Also you can customize it to say your name and school on the front. 

Pages I didn't really use :(

Above are some of the pages at the beginning of the planner that I didn't use. The first "all about me" page I did fill in with my info- just in case. But the "classroom events and volunteers" and "substitute" pages felt like they were designed for an elementary class room. I am not planning anything for those pages next year- they will just remain blank. The "year at a glance" pages seem like they could be really useful, but as a first year teacher not knowing what subjects I would be teaching- I didn't fill it in. I plan on trying to fill it in this year for my resource chemistry class.

Another page I didn't use- But I will!

Above is another page that I think was designed for an elementary class room where you only have 25-30 kids ever. This would be useful to track what the kids missed. However when you have 20-30 kids in each of your 5 periods- it makes using this section a little more difficult. SO my big plan for re-purposing this section for next year is to use it as a parent/student contact log. This will be very beneficial to me because while I was good about contacting parents I was really bad about logging it on our online system for parent contacts. This is important for special education because there are laws specifying how many times you need to attempt to contact parents and such. Also since I always have my planner with me, I can write it in the section and then log it the online system later! Great Idea! (well I hope it is anyway-

Not pictured: there is a section full of graph paper. I mostly used it just for notes and lists and things. But you could use it for seating arrangements. I imagine it would be useful for all sorts of other things too.

Monthly View

These were great because after each month are 3 pages for notes for that month. I also used this both as a calendar for school and personal. It was nice to be able to see when all the home football and basketball games were. Also I coach lacrosse so practice and game times were kept here too.

Lesson Planning pages! 

Above are the lesson planning pages! I love these. Even though we have to turn in electronic lesson plans, I really benefit from mapping it out on paper first. Although I do suggest writing in pencil otherwise you'll use lots of white out or sticky notes. Across the top are 7 slots, which works well if your are on a 7 period day- I guess. But luckily not all of us have 7 preps so we can combine blocks and have more space to write. Now it took me a while to figure out what my optimal set up was for my classes across the top. But one thing that I found VERY helpful was to have a section for my planning period where I could make to-do lists for everything that needed to get done. Also you can see in the picture where I've "X"-ed out some days for some classes. My high school is on a modified block so Mon, Tue, and Fri are 7 period days. Wed is Odd block day and Thur is even block day. So this planner is definitely customizable to your schedule- you will just have to play around with it.

Stickers! 

Who doesn't love stickers?!

Grade book- I think?

I think these pages were designed to be used as a grade book. For me this year I didn't think that would be useful because our grades are done online. However, there are some glitches with that and it is possible for students grades from all year to be lost (YIKES!). So next year I think I will try to keep a grade book, at least for the Chem resource class that I will be teaching. For my co-taught classes I don't think I'll be keeping track of all that. Above you can see 2 things I tried to use these pages for. The left was me trying to keep track of my students IEP goals. The right was me marking tardies. Tardies are a big problem at our school- not really sure why. I think it has to do with the fact that the building was designed to hold like 800 max students and we've got like 1100 students in. We are growing too fast!

2015-2016 Planner!

Lastly, above is my planner for next year! I decided to go with a positive quote on the outside to always remind me that I can do anything I put my mind to! Also in the package this year was another positive quote- so I stuck it inside the front cover!

Overall I would totally recommend the Teacher Planner to anyone. My middle sister and I loved the teacher planner so much that our youngest sister, who is a college student, got the life planner. She loves that thing too! Basically Erin Condren knows what she is doing! Check her out at her website!