I can assure you that I have THE best weekly planner for teacher. Do not @ me about this.
I know this may not be well received considering it’s a fad now to spend loads on an adorably overpriced planner. Spending more for cute color schemes and loopy fonts does NOT mean you’re actually going to get organized this year, Becky. Real life doesn’t always look like a well curated Instagram.
For me, planning my week needs to be fast and easy. And I mean SUPER easy because I have about 5 minutes and 13,473 things to do between classes and that’s if I don’t need to use the toilet. (Seriously, who actually goes to the bathroom???)
With my apologies in advance for lack of unrealistic perfectionism, here’s how I do it.
When I’m living my best life I plan using sticky notes (as seen above). That’s fabulous for when inevitably end up having to move things around or scrap an idea altogether. After the class, I remove the sticky note and write down exactly what we did do in pen.
When things are less tight, I end up just planning pencil and writing over it in pen. Ideally, I’ll erase the pencil marks later, but as you can see in this photo that sometimes doesn’t happen. Which is fine.
I make all kinds of notes about page numbers and behavior in the boxes. Each square represents a period and each row (or column if you’d rather) represents a day. In the space beyond our 4 ninety minute periods I make rough notes of what I’ll do in my evening.
Additionally, in the boxes that represent my plan periods I like to make my to do lists. Sometimes I put an item in a plan box a few days ahead if it’s not too critical and can be delegated to a more distant future Laney to deal with.
***Ok so I teach 4 different classes. I see each class 7 times during a 10 day period, but the daily schedule is never the same for any two of those 10. Needless to say, knowing where I am with each group is a literal nightmare and a well organized planner is the Key to Success in my chaotic life.
So if you’re like me and you start counting down til summer before the leaves even change colors, then you’re definitely going to want to take advantage of the year at a glance feature. Here’s mine from this year. Doesn’t look too bad when you see it all mapped out does it?
In a rare act of sentimentality, I do lovingly preserve all my planners from previous years. This doubles as an incredibly helpful tool when planning the new year if you’re lucky enough to have the same content. Here’s a before and after created using my brand new shiny planner for this year, and my last year’s planner.
As you can see this baby weathers the abuse of 180 days better than most of us teachers!
If you’re reading this and it’s not the end of the year or the very start of a new one and thinking, “Man, I really should try that next year…” then I urge you to NOT wait! It’s never too late to get organized with the absolute best weekly planner for teachers!!! Start today! Your next year self will thank you!
If you choose to buy through my link I may make about $0.13. As a fellow educator I know you know how much that would mean to me. If you’re ready to start getting organized now, click this link to shop my favorite planner for under 10 bucks!If you choose to buy through my link I may make about $0.13. As a fellow educator I know you know how much that would mean to me. If you’re ready to start getting organized now, click the image below to shop my favorite planner for under 10 bucks!
Disclosure: This post contains Amazon affiliate links, which means I may make a commission if you make a purchase after clicking on a link.
