Lesson Plans

Don't get me wrong, I love planbook.com but after looking at this blog (http://ateachersplan.blogspot.com/p/home.html) I kind of want to re-think my plans.  I love the cute fonts and checklist approach to her plans.  If my plans were that simple to fill in, I might actually be able to plan a week in advance!  I'm going play with different formats and templates.  I'll post whatever I come up with.  I'm also noticing that many teachers planbooks are broken into subjects by week.  The plans on that blog are broken into ELA, Math, and Content areas.  The music teacher I work with does 1 set of plans per grade level and keeps them seperated by grade level.  I'm considering keeping my plans seperated by group.  We will see what I come up with!

Pintrest

Pintrest.com is my new favorite website.  I'm a person who loves mood boards and pintrest.com is basically a mood board site.  Once you sign up, you will add a "Pin it" button to your favorites and create board titles.  Then as you go through websites and see ideas you like, you click the Pin It button and select the picture you want.  It pins it to your boards for you, attaching the link to the site you are on.  I made boards for teaching ideas, house ideas, wedding, and art.  I'm thinking about breaking my teaching ideas board into Lesson Ideas, Center Ideas, Decorations, and Management.  Then when I need a lesson idea, I can quickly go to my board.  Love Love Love this site!

Summer is here!

Summer is here and yet I'm still not getting time off.  I've spent my first day without students reflecting on the last year, going through student work samples for my portfolio, and thinking about changes for next year.  Being in special ed leaves a lot up in the air each summer.  I don't know what grade levels I'll be working with in Septemer.  I don't even know what building(s) I'll be in.  I probably won't know either of those until about a week before school starts.  Therefore, thinking about long-range planning, as most of my co-workers plan on doing this summer, won't work for me.  So what can we do to prep for the upcoming school year?  Gather ideas and materials.  Here are some of the projects I want to do this summer:

1. Create a new behavior chart
2. Create a writing station (aka - different types of paper in labeled paper sorters - spacer paper, primary paper, primary paper with picture, first and final draft paper, graph paper, blank paper)
3. Set up a binder for student work/probes
4.  Create a few mini reading/writing UbD units
5.  Create my go-to files for reading comp, decoding, writing (Copies of my most used resources)

If you are a returning teacher, I'm sure there are tons of things that you can think of that you want to improve, modify, update, and create.  Take an hour and really think about things you want to do differently next year.  Write them all down and then sort them into order of importance.  Try to get all the highly important items done in July.  That will leave you with all of August to get even more done - or to ignore school completely knowing your "must do" items are finished. 

If you just found out you will be teaching in a resource setting next year, you will need a different approach.  The first thing I would do is set up some sort of filing system in your computer.  You will be using the internet to find the majority of your ideas so this will be important.  Next, think about things you will definately need:
1. Welcome letter
2. Management system/Rules/Procedures
3. Class list sheet to check off things
4. A small collection of lesson ideas
5. System for tracking students progress

Start searching online for ideas.  Save the ideas you like.  With items like behavior plans, make sure you really love the system and you believe it fits your setting before putting work into it.  Remember, Keep It Simple!  I only have my students for 30 minutes at a time.  I don't want to lose a minute every time a student has a behavior issue.  Save your favorite websites so you can go back to them when school starts. 

The more you get done over the summer, the less you have to do while trying to teach.  Have a relaxing and productive summer! 

Student Info Cards

I like to keep Test Accommodation cards on my desk, in case I'm out on the day of a test.  I also like to keep students goals, birthday, parent contact info, and health information handy.  Get out your scrapbooking supplies (or run to Michaels) and create a cover card (like a cover page) for your info cards.  I keep mine on a metal ring on my desk.  I can quickly grab the ring and I have all the information I may need.