... It's Back To School Time!

It's that time of year again... I officially start school on MONDAY! I can't believe it's August. I know a lot of other states start school much later -- even after Labor Day -- but we start early in the south and are out of school by Memorial Day! I love not having school in June!

I have been itching to get back to work all week. I know, I should be relaxing by a pool, enjoying my final hours of relaxation... but I just have so many ideas on my mind that I just want to get started! I actually did a lot of "fun" stuff this week to get ready for school! During the school year, I don't normally have a lot of time to play with new webtools and try out new things. I've had all summer to let a few ideas percolate, so I was more than ready to put them on paper and get them ready for school.

I know a lot of teachers that start every class with a bell-ringer or warm-up problem. I have started class with practice problems when we are working on math concepts, but I'm not very good at making it a part of the daily routine in class. I feel like this is a missed opportunity, but could never find a system that I felt was meaningful for both me and the students.

I saw this pin on Pinterest, and started thinking. I loved the way that system has students evaluate their learning on their way out the door. But did I really want to look through them every day? Would I have time to do that? I know that if it was every day I wouldn't stick with it... but maybe I could do once a week... That seems much more reasonable. My plan was to give students a half-sheet of paper and hold them responsible for having it all week (and have a way for them to make it up if they miss class or lose it...) and on Friday, when they finish their warm-up, they can turn it in to whichever folder represents how they feel about that weeks content. This idea is still a work in progress! I will post an update when I have it all figured out!

The Creative Classroom had a similar idea, but with bins. I love the wording of these!

Some teachers have a clear way to write their lesson plans. Some teachers buy the same lesson plan book each year or print off their own. Personally, I have never found a system that really worked for me. I've tried printing them off and keeping them in a binder, but the binder I had was too bulky and I didn't like carrying it home or to meetings. I'm trying a new system this year, and I'm pretty excited about it! It's called Planboard. It's a free online lesson planner.

Favorite things:
1. Set your schedule/classes and there are many, many schedule variations for the schools with A/B days or different Thursdays...
2. Keeps plans from previous years
3. Day/Week/Monthly Views

This is what the Day View looks like:

I love how clean it is. It has a "notepad" area for notes for that day. For each lesson, you can attach files to easily find them (I probably won't use this feature) and you can attach standards! You can attach a set of standards to each course and it will track your standard progress throughout the year. I love this feature! This is something that is so time consuming for me to do on paper, but when it's online it should be much easier!

This system is all about sticking to it, so I'm going to try use it diligently and I will let you know my thoughts once the school year gets rolling.

To celebrate the start of school, I'm throwing a sale in my TpT Store AND there is a site-wide TpT sale going on too! Such a great time to find those new resources for school!

How are other teachers feeling about going back to school?