Teacher Planners!

Hi. My name is Katie and I loved to be organized. I'm the type of person that gets a little giddy when I see the new planners at Target. Even if I DON'T need one. Weekly calendar dry erase boards, post-it notes and checklists all make me smile. Add in a new set of colorful pens and I'm definitely in my happy place!

It certainly doesn't take much to make me happy! ;)

This year I decided to do away with a personal planner completely. It was also important that I keep my plans for Alex at home organized along with my plans for school, the calendar and all other important life things all in one place. I knew it would be too hard to keep up with too many planners/calendars! 

This year Will requested one too so I took out some of the "cuteness" factor to make it more high school/male teacher friendly! 😉

I always think about what worked or didn't work from last year's planner, then work on adding and updating things to make it easier and more efficient! 

What is it about colored pens that make everything so much more fun?

What I love about putting together my own planner is being able to choose how many of each page I want! Last year I had way too many meeting notes pages so this year I only printed a couple!

Lots of room to write in the calendar and I have months up through July 2018 available. Also 1 page month spread in case you don't need so much space.

Got to love To-Do list!  I printed off our state standards to add for easy access too.

Lesson plan pages!! I have lots of varieties and can customize them for you to meet your needs! I'm old school and like to write them, and have used several different versions depending on the year and what I am teaching.

For my current school I plan the whole unit out because I'm only planning for two days a week.

Below are my plan pages for Alex at home. I have weekly one page or two page options. He gets his own section in my planner. ;) 

Here is a glimpse of Will's.

He has to do lesson plans online, but still wanted pages to write notes, keep up with what he had covered, and have a place for big picture unit stuff. Of course, since I am me, I had to color coordinate the cover and divider pages with his school colors. :) 

If you want one too you can click here or on the picture below to check them out! My planner is the colorful one. There are multiple options for the covers/dividers.

The best part was I pretty much printed the whole thing for free! I had to get a new printer this summer and enrolled in Hp instant ink which is AMAZING! You get 3 free months when you sign up with a new printer (also check for other promotion codes too!) and if you use my referral code we will both get a free month: http://try.hpinstantink.com/frmbq

Happy Planning!

Five For Friday: Back to School!

This was a busy week for us! The boys and I finally had our first days of school. Here is what this week looked like.

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The start of the week was all about planning for the first month or so of school. Because we are only in school two days a week, I am trying to plan out the entire unit at once, and then break down the lessons. It give me a good idea of where we are headed. You can read more about my planning {here}. 

{two}

Back to school wouldn't be complete without treats for the teachers! :) I made banana bread and then was trying to figure out what to put on a tag... This seemed pretty fitting! ;) I may or may not have passed some out to some of my coworkers as well! ;)

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Our first day was on Tuesday! Both boys went in very excited to their classes! Alex is in 4k this year! We actually will have some homework to keep up with! ;) Liam is more in a nursery setting, but I think he will keep plenty busy in there too! I had my 8th first day of school, but my first one in 3rd grade. :)

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Our two days at school were wonderful! I enjoyed getting to know the sweet kids in my class. You can read lots more about our back to school adventures {here}! 

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Back to School is never complete without some team building time! The Marshmallow Challenge is always a great way to build those skills, but you can go to the collaboration posts (or click here) for lots of great ways to encourage teamwork during the first weeks of school! I think it is important to get to know the kids, but then its also even more important to help them to learn how to work together and problem solve even in the middle of challenges!

That is a peek at our week! Hope everyone who headed back to school this week is having a great week!
Be sure to hop on over to Kacey's Five for Friday link up to see what others are up to as well! :)

First Days of School

I seriously love my job!! Especially since my week is already over! ;) I got to meet some of the sweetest kiddos this week and we had a lot of fun getting to know each other!

Here are a couple of things that we started on this week...

Making Books

Definitely my favorite way to start writing. A blank stapled book.  I had books sitting at their seats when they came in and told them to write about something they did this summer. I learned lots about them as writers. The different responses to the task is always precious and the look in their eyes as their ideas start forming is WONDERFUL! I can't wait to jump into our writer's workshop next week. 

Who Am I as a Reader/Writer

I made these sheets specifically for the first days of school. It was a helpful way to get to the kiddos--their interests in reading, what they like to write, what kind of read alouds will hold their attention the best, what genres they know.

I had several of the following response...

It makes perfect sense! :)

Marshmallow Challenge

I wasn't sure if I wanted to do this, but was so glad I decided too! Any opportunity to see kids have to collaborate and work together is great! I did this last year, but waited until we had been in school a week or two. We had the best discussion afterwards about teamwork and I loved watching how hard the kids worked and that they persevered through the task!

They all agreed that the task was difficult, especially because they didn't always get to use their idea, they had to think about other people's ideas too. If you want more info about the marshmallow challenge go {here}.

iBooks

We call our interactive notebooks iBooks here. I told the kids they were getting iBooks and they got all excited...and then I told them to pull out the black notebook in their backpacks... ;) We got started on our Literature iBook as we started talking about characters. 

I really do like using them to help us keep up with our notes and learning! Tuesday we read a couple chapters of Because of Winn Dixie and then talked about the characters while we worked on the pages. On Wednesday we continued to talk about characters in our different read alouds and it was good to keep the connection going! I'm still in the process of finishing the first unit, but once it is done I will be adding it to my TPT store! :)

Read Alouds

Here's a peek at the read alouds we used this week to celebrate being Back and School and to brainstorm before writing our Essential Agreements. 

Always a fun one!

Just because they need to get to know my favorite author! ;)

I haven't used this book before, but it is a Beautiful story and the kids really thought through how we should treat others.

It's not back to school time unless we read this one! :)

Of course, back to school days would not be complete unless I find out what the kids want to learn about this year! :) It's a great way to get them used to my quick check/exit slip system too! :)

There's a snapshot of our back to school fun! Next week we dive deeper into characters and setting and we will get started with Writer's Workshop!

Hope your back to school was fabulous too!

Back to School Tired!

First day back to school... Well, teacher meetings that is! ;)

My boys had a load of fun while I sat through some training and got to know the other ladies who will be working at Arrows this year! Today made me so much more excited for this year. 

Next Tuesday I meet the kids! :) Can't wait! 

When do you start school? 

Five For Friday: Hello August!

I can't believe we are already in August! Will is at school doing all the back to school meetings and the boys and I have been keeping busy at home! 

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This child. He is a mischievous one! I can't keep my eyes off of him for too long or he has spilled, climbed, eaten, but mostly just destroyed something. I love listening to him talk though, his language explosion is amazing. 

And then there's this one, who won't ever look at the camera! ;) We had a fun day at the library reading construction stories and making dump trucks out of egg cartons! His quest for learning makes me so happy and I love seeing all the the new things he loves to share with us on a daily basis!

{two}

As I get to know my kids this year I want to know who they think they are as readers and writers. I added this to my TPT store earlier this week! 

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I took the boys to the zoo this week! We went early enough in the day I decided we could feed the birds because they hopefully wouldn't be overfed yet! They certainly don't jump at the chance to eat as much as they did a couple of years ago, but Liam loved the experience!

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We often host international students during school breaks, but this year we hosted two students before they went into their resident houses. One was with us for about a week and the other just a couple of days. We love getting to know more about them and their culture!  One of them had this cup and I found it quite hilarious. :) It reminds me of stuff that we see in Japan too. We have lots of fun snacks to try and I have some black and green tea to test out as well! It was really sweet of them to bring treats for us! 

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I've been getting questions about what I am doing next year! :) It is definitely unique! I have written a couple different posts about what my year in third grade will look like... you can check them out {here} or click on the picture to read my lastest post about it!

Well that sums up my week! Next week I have three days of teacher meetings so I'm definitely going to be getting into back to school mode!

Be sure to check out what other teachers are up to at Kacey's Five for Friday!

Who we are as Readers and Writers

Planning for this year back to school is definitely a little different than years past. First off it's 3rd grade and Secondly I only see the kiddos two mornings a week. We have to jump into our learning pretty quickly so as I was thinking about the first week of school and getting to know my kids, I decided to also use the lens of who they were as readers and writers. I have done interest inventories with kids and their parents in the past, but decided to make it a little more fun this year!

I love doing these too! It's a great way to reflect as a teacher reader and writer too! 

I will often give one or two of my answers as an example, but save a lot to share after the kids are done... Just to make sure I don't influence their answers. ;)

You can find it {here} at teachers pay teachers!

Start filling up your cart but wait to buy it until Monday when the back to school sale starts! My store will be 20% off and then enter the promo code BTS15 for even more savings! :) Be sure to check out some of my back to school freebies as well!