Incentive Scratch-off Cards!!

I am a huge advocate for rewarding positive behavior, but I don't want to spend the money on maintaining a "goodie box" of candy, pencils, erasers, etc. all year long! I would much rather reward students with something fun and class oriented. I have given out homework passes before, and those work well, but this year I'm trying something new -- Incentive Scratch-Off Cards!

First, I made each of my cards using Microsoft Word. I could have made them prettier, fancier, and more colorful, but I'm a fan of simplicity sometimes! I managed to fit 18 on a page and printed them on white cardstock. I chose incentives that I can use for any of my classes -- since I teach two different grades and courses. I chose +5 pts on a Quiz, Vocabulary Pass, Classwork Pass, and Lab Pass. The best part is you can totally customize the options for your classroom, regardless of grade level! You could make rewards for treats like computer/iPad time, choosing their seat or group, front of the line, etc. So many options!

I cut out each of the cards using my handy dandy little paper trimmer (what would I do without that thing, seriously...). I then covered the reward portion with scotch tape. I could only find the satin gift-wrapping type, but experiment and see if other types work! You could also use clear contact paper or packing tape. Notice I only covered the portion with the reward, not the top heading section.

Next I had to mix a very specific concoction (insert sarcasm) of dishsoap and acrylic paint - I tried to use about 1 part dishsoap to 2 parts paint. I'm not sure it matters, but I used Palmolive original green dishsoap. I used boring grey paint, but you could really use any color! Mix them together, but not too vigorously or it makes a lot of bubbles.

Paint over the taped section of the incentive cards. Only the paint on the tape will scratch off. Don't worry if it doesn't cover perfectly with one coat! I didn't want to spend the time making them into perfect little designs, but you certainly could! Give them a few minutes between coats and keep adding coats until you can no longer read the words. It took me three coats.

Let them dry completely and try one out! How awesome is this? I think my kids are totally going to love them -- and I didn't need to buy any special supplies!

I plan on giving them out as rewards for winning games, staying on task on those particularly difficult days, or doing something awesome in class. I really want to make sure these are rewards for ALL my kids, not just my "A" students!

Let me know if you are going to try this out too! Endless possibilities for all grade levels!

Customizing My Erin Condren Teacher Planner for High School

UPDATE: This blog post outlines the older layout for Erin Condren Teacher Planners! I will be writing a new post soon about their updated version - it includes almost all of the customization described below, so I still highly recommend it! 

If you are interested in purchasing your own Erin Condren Teacher Planner, use this link and get $10 off your first purchase! 

The video below includes an updated walkthrough of the planner and how I use it for secondary science!

This post is a long time coming, so bear with me as I give you all the details! I finally finished customizing my Erin Condren Teacher Planner for the 16-17 school year. I ordered it in May so I knew that I would have time to customize it and use it over the summer. I could not be more thrilled!

I loved this planner as soon as I saw it, but realized that some of the sections were really geared toward elementary teachers or teachers with a small number of students. I began searching for blog posts about customizing the teacher planner and I found TONS of amazing posts about how elementary school teachers customize it for their needs, a few about how middle school teachers use it, but very few about using the planner for High School. Us high school teachers need fun planners too! I consider myself a relatively creative person, so I decided to tackle this challenge: Customizing an Erin Condren Teacher Planner for High School!

So much of the planner is already perfect. Some of the things I did not customize are the monthly layouts and notes sections. There is a tab for each month, a two page monthly spread, and three notes pages for each month. Perfect! I already made use of some of the notes pages at a recent PD session!

The sections I don't find useful for high school are the attendance section, grid paper, checklist section, and Birthday section. Luckily, I have an amazing idea for each of these! The video below has a quick overview of the changes I have made!

All the customization was done with washi tape, stickers (some included with the planner), double sided tape, and regular paper from my printer.

We don't celebrate birthdays in class, or we'd be celebrating all the time, so I decided to change the class birthdays section into a long-term To-Do list and an area to keep track of books to read, items to order, and ideas for the future. It will slowly fill up during the year and will be a great place to look back to in May when we are wrapping up. The stickers on this page are from the back of the teacher planner! I may end up ditching the two-toned look and just put straight washi across. I haven't decided yet.

The attendance section isn't very useful for me, because we take electronic attendance. I use the electronic attendance constantly, so I don't want to make a paper version. I decided to change my attendance section into an Email/Contact Log for parent contact. Although I keep copies of all the emails I send, they get filed away into a folder. Parent emails can be obscure and it gets easy to lose track of the dates you emailed and whether the parent responded. The attendance log already has a column for check marks -- perfect for checking whether a parent responded. There are also columns for name, date, and reason for contact. 

The grid section seems pretty useful for me, especially for seating charts and data tracking. For me, we change seating charts all the time and my classroom is an odd shape due to science benches. It didn't seem feasible for me to use the section that way. I have around 150 students, and about 10 students who enter or leave throughout the year. Our data tracking is already online, so I am going to stick to that. I decided to use the grid section for a Behavior Log and Intervention tracker. As the adage goes, 20% of your kids cause 80% of your problems, so for each class, I usually only have a handful of trouble makers. I plan on using the grid area to track their "bad" days and what we tried to do to fix it. If I end up meeting with the parent or counselor later, I have a quick place to look back and reference what has occurred in our classroom. Luckily, the grid pages are decorated but not labeled, so no customizing needed!

I love the layout of the lesson planning pages -- the days are horizontal and the preps are vertical. I love that each day is a different color and there is plenty of space for me to write without having to miniaturize my handwriting. There is room for seven preps, but most high school teachers don't have that many. I have two and a half preps -- Chemistry, Biology, and an ESOL section of Biology. I call the ESOL section a half prep since we are covering the same material and will be doing some of the same activities, but some of the plans will be modified. I didn't need seven sections for lesson plans, but I wanted to use up all the space that was provided. I thought about what other types of things I normally write in my planner throughout the year -- meetings, conferences, To-Do List, Reminders -- and knew there had to be a way to incorporate all of that. This was my solution!

I used thin solid colored washi tape to create four different sections. Two of the sections are two columns wide. This is where I plan on putting my lessons for Biology and Chemistry, since those are my main preps. The first page has three columns total, so I will use the first column for Biology and the single column for ESOL Biology. The second page has four columns total. The first two are for Chemistry. The last two columns are for To-Do lists and Meetings. I am super excited to start using this section. I love being able to have everything I need for the day in one spot.

The checklist section is basically a gradebook -- which is grade for elementary teachers who only have thirty kids. It doesn't seem big enough to keep track of grades for all 150 students I see for the entire year. I decided to use this section to record assessment data. By the time we take our first tests, most of the schedule changes are complete and my rosters are more stable. At the semester change, I may have a few students switch, but most of them stay the same. I plan on tracking mastery data for standards and assessment scores. I am keeping a row at the bottom to track averages. This is going to be super handy when I am sitting in an IT meeting and trying to remember what student tests looked like. It also allows me to record their raw score and curved score for interims, EOCs, and other curved tests we give.

So far, I could not be more ecstatic about this purchase! I will be using my planner during the summer for summer school, meetings, conferences... but I will keep you all updated if I make any other changes once the school year begins!

Update: Two weeks into the school year - AND I'M IN LOVE! I have kept everything the same minus a few additional stickers and washi scattered around. The best purchase -- Highly recommend high school folks!

If you are interested in purchasing your own Erin Condren Teacher Planner, use this link and get $10 off your first purchase! 

Blog Challenge: Day 8

What's in your desk drawer and what can you infer from those contents?

Can we just take a moment to appreciate how clean my desk was at the beginning of the year? 

Needless to say, its April now, and it doesn't look anything like that. It's currently buried under papers that need to be filed or graded or handed back or copied... how in the world can one desk collect so many papers? 

I honestly don't use my desk drawer much, so I'll include the things (non-paper things) that are also on my desk. 

• Laptop + Accessories (a necessity)
• Writing Utensils -- my personal pencils, highlighters, pens, sharpies -- that are for my use and not for students. 
• Post its of every size and color imaginable (the best way to remind myself of things)
• Planner with Lesson Plans (my organizational lifeline)
• Coffee mug (again -- a necessity)
• Fake Flowers and Picture Frame with quotes (These make my desk feel more personal)
• Breath Mints (for after the previously mentioned coffee)
• Lip Balm
• USB drives -- who knows where they actually come from, I rarely use them!
• Paper clips, binder clips, and other miscellaneous school supplies

I feel like this is a pretty standard list. Keep in mind all that stuff is buried under the piles of papers. I always start the year with my greatest intention of staying organized and neat, but throughout the craziness of the year, that gets put at the wayside in favor of a few more minutes of grading or a moment or two to catch my breath. I spend very little time at my desk during class, but it is where I spend the majority of my time before and after school. It is where I keep my necessities for the day -- mainly my planner, my laptop, and my coffee. I'm pretty sure I could get by without the rest. 

What are your school necessities?

Blog Challenge: Day 5

Post a picture of your classroom, and describe what you see -- and what you don't see that you'd like to

Here it is. My classroom. My second home. It's a chemistry classroom -- meaning its long and narrow with lab benches on either side. During the summer, they pack lots and lots of desks in the back of the room. I end up moving them to create more space in the back to move around. Unfortunately, the narrowness of the space doesn't allow for much creativity with desk placement -- although I'm open to suggestions if you have any!

One of my goals for next year is to be much more intentional about my word walls. The upper cabinets on the wall are going to have most of my vocabulary words (plus pictures). Seeing as I have two different courses to do vocabulary with, I may have to figure out another plan, but that's what my plan is right now.

One of my favorite parts of my classroom is my Wall of Awesome. This picture is from the beginning of the year, when the wall was empty, but it is currently FULL of student names. Whenever students get an "A" on a test, they get to write their name on a post-it and glue it to the wall. It's right in the front of class so students see it every day as a reminder to be awesome!

This area of my room is going to get a revamp this coming year. This year, half of the wall was dedicated to posting grades for students after big assessments. I'm going to skip this next year since all the grades are posted online and I want students to get into the habit of logging in to the class website anyways! The other half of the bulletin board was for binder organization. Since I am going to be doing notebooks in all my classes next year, this isn't needed! I am thinking of replacing that side with a word wall, or a helpful reference wall, or anchor charts, or something... I'm not sure yet! Ideas are welcome! 

The front entrance of my room used to have these awesome folders for students to "rank their week" on Fridays with their warm-up papers. I haven't decided if I'm going to keep this or not -- should they still turn in papers instead of gluing them in their notebook? Perhaps use it only for exit slips on specific days? I'm not sure, but chances are it will not look this way next year. 

Things I'm keeping for next year: Wall of Awesome, Seating Arrangement (unless I have another great idea), Exit slip folders (maybe)

Things I'm going to change for next year: Word Wall placement, back bulletin board

I would love to see if you have any great ideas! I am open to suggestions!

... My Classroom is Finally Ready!

I can't believe our pre-planning week is over already! I seriously could use another day or two -- a meeting free day or two would be even better. In terms of planning, I feel really good! There are a few things I would still like to do in my classroom, but I will work on that over the next few weeks. I couldn't keep it to myself anymore though and wanted to share my classroom with everyone! I have a couple of new things I'm extremely excited about! 

I teach both Biology and Chemistry, so my classroom has lots of lab drawers and cabinets. I have three rows of desks in the center and I have stools at four of the lab benches. My classes are around 30 students or larger, so most of my open space is occupied with desks for them. 

As students walk into the door, this is the corner they see. On the brick wall are two [currently] blank posters I use to write reminders to the students like "Test tomorrow!" or "Lab Day -- Dress for Safety!" It's one of the last things they see as they leave, so hopefully it will be a good reminder wall for them. The tiny bulletin board above them will eventually say "Don't Forget..." but alas, I didn't have time for that this week. On the side of the fume hood I have my bell ringer folders that I like to call "Rate Your Week!" My students are going to turn in all their bell ringers for the week on one half sheet of paper on Fridays. They will sort them into whichever folder they feel best describes their level of understanding for the week. I have big plans for these bell ringers, not just boring review questions, so stay tuned for those details! 

On the other side of the fume hood is my Goggle cabinet, student supply center, and bulletin board. On the right side of the bulletin board are my binder lists (I will get letters above these at some point too, I promise...). Whenever a student gets a handout, it gets assigned a number and put into their binder. I keep track of the most recent papers they received. I'll talk about this more in my homework post that is coming soon! The left side of my bulletin board looks barren right now, but will have grade postings once those are available. 

My student supply center has the bin to turn in their homework, scratch paper, extra pens/pencils, and miscellaneous supplies like tissues and hand sanitizer. The bright yellow slips are the Late Homework forms students have to fill out before turning in late work. They fill it out, staple it to the late work, and when they get the work back, the parent must sign the slip. This is my first year trying this system, so I will let you know how it turns out! My "I Didn't Do My Homework..." binder will also be back here. Each student has a page in the binder. When they don't have their homework, they find their page and fill out an entry with the assignment name and why they don't have it. I'm going to talk more about my homework system in a later post too! 

I have to show off my gigantic stock room (not shared, this is just mine!). I have some extra student desks in there. Sometimes my team teacher will use it as a small group space, other times I pull the desks out if we need them, but they are out of the way in there. 

Most exciting part of the stock room -- new Acid cabinet! My old one has a door that is rusted shut, so this was much needed and appreciated! 

The front of my room has my teacher storage, student desktop, my desk, and demo station. The blue crate holds my copies for the week sorted into hanging file folders. I have them sorted by day and subject to help keep me organized. I also have a copycat binder to the ones my students keep for easy reference.

Front and center is my "Wall of Awesome!" Whenever a student gets an 80% or higher on a test, they write their name on a post-it and tape it to the wall. I love that its front and center in the room, sort of like a constant reminder to the students. 

My large metal cabinet has my reference books, extra copy paper, binders, and other things I don't need frequently. My bookcase holds my frequently used items. The blue baskets are for student supplies. I will pull these out and put them on the back student table when they need them that day. The top magazine boxes are an easy way to stay organized when I have piles and piles of papers. I also love the little frame with the quote! 

My desk is my happy place. The top corner has a cute flower pot, my Teacher of the Year award, and one of my favorite quotes! Yoda is so wise and knowledgeable. I try my best to keep this area clean, but this is about as clean as it will be all year! 

As I said, there are still some small things I would like to do, but I already love how my classroom looks! It is so much more interesting than it was last year, and I think the new supply table in back will help the students (and myself) be a little more organized. 

School starts on Monday! I think I'm planned and ready to go! Let's get this school year started!

... 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?

... I Do Homework Too!

I don't know about you, but I don't give tons of homework! Perhaps I'm crazy, perhaps this is brilliant -- I have no idea.

I've posted about homework before, but in case you haven't read that past post (though you should!) if I assign homework, I typically portion out part of the following day to go over the homework together especially if it is a math intensive homework like many of the chemistry ones are. 

When this is the case, I get to do homework too! Hooray! 

Practicing Stoichiometry

I'm not sure if this is because I'm a newbie teacher still, but when I assign several problems, I work through them, showing my work, just like I would expect my students to do. Why?

1. Easy Reference

I can easily see how to work through the problem so when I go to write it on the board, I can make sure its easy-to-read and organized. 

2. Pinpoint Trouble Problems

There always seems to be a tricky problem hidden within an otherwise straight forward assignment. The only way to remember and spot them is to do them yourself. If I'm spot checking homework, or looking for practice problems, I choose these problems first to see if students were able to handle them. 

3. Answer Keys for Students

During certain units, I will give students multiple sheets of practice problems to work on in class at their own pace, with a partner, or in groups. Since they can start and work on whichever problems they wish, I like to have an answer key available for them to check their work. I always show my work the way I expect students to show their work. When they check their answer and have the incorrect answer, they know to go back and find what they did wrong. I feel like this is silently reinforcing the reason for why they have to show their work (even though I mention it continuously). 

4. Extra Practice!

Some concepts get rusty when you wait an entire year between teaching them (gas laws anyone?). Doing the homework helps to remind my brain of how to work out the problems. I will be the first to admit that I have  made many mistakes while working through practice problems in front of class, but doing the homework ahead of time at least minimizes some of them. It's always good to brush up on skills! 

Do my other fellow teachers also do homework? How to you brush up on your skills and target tricky problems?

... Google Drive is the Best!

I have always been a fan of Google drive, but when it first came out, it didn't have all the fancy tools that Microsoft Word did. Eventually, I stopped using it... 

Until this year! My neighbor teacher talks about it and uses it for everything, so I thought I'd try it out. I must say, I'm a major fan. 

Google Drive is awesome for three reasons: 
1. Easy-to-Use
2. Portable
3. Versatile

The Google Docs portion of Google Drive looks and functions much like any other word processing program. Same types of options and same shortcuts make it a breeze to switch from one to the other. You can insert images and tables easily. You can even install customized fonts -- which is awesome since I like to use the same unique font for everything (see my previous post). It does not have every bell and whistle that you may find with a program like Microsoft Word, but it has enough for a basic user like myself. The only complaint I have is that making columns is a little tricky, but possible. 

I love how portable Google Drive makes all of my school documents. You can upload any Word Document, PowerPoint, Excel Sheet, or PDF to Google Drive and open it anywhere. No more lugging out my school laptop to make a small change to something. I organize everything into folders by course and unit, which makes it simple to find everything. If I have documents on my computer for the unit I'm planning, I will quickly upload all the necessary documents to the folder so I can get to everything at home. I create and edit most of my documents at home where I'm free from meetings and interruptions and this is by far the easiest method. 

My favorite thing about Google Drive is how versatile it is. You are not limited to just word processing, but can also create presentations, drawings, and spreadsheets. 

The presentations are great because you can insert videos straight from YouTube! It's as simple as copying and pasting a link. It allows you to play the video within your presentation instead of having to open up a separate browser window. I've embeded videos into PowerPoint before, but would get lag spikes or skips in them. It was never reliable for me. As long as you have a stable internet connection, the inserted videos in Google Presentations work great! 

Drawing is my new favorite document type! It seems like its supposed to be similar to Publisher, but I find it much easier to use. You can create any imaginable graphic using pre-created shapes, text boxes, various types of lines, or inserting images. I love using Drawing to create customized models for class -- I'll share some of these later! It is easy to use and has a ton of possibilities. 

Best part about the Google Suite -- you can insert Drawings into Documents! You can create a customized graphic and embed it into a lab or activity document. So simple. So lesson changing. 

Love it!

... I Have Four Classroom Quirks

I think every teacher is guilty of having at least a few quirks -- certain brand of pens, certain organization system, desks aligned perfectly, papers turned in alphabetically... the list goes on! Some of the quirks I have help to keep me sane when my students are acting younger than their age, and some of them have no other purpose except to give me a little enjoyment. 

In no particular order, these are my quirks. 

1. A Similar Font (Found Here)

Every single assignment that I am able to customize is printed in the same font for all of my classes. I have even been guilty of re-typing something that isn't customizable just so I can print it in my font. 

I started doing this after starting a new job and talking to our department chair. She uses one font for all of her assignments and noted how as soon as a student, teacher, or administrator sees her hand-outs, they know they are hers. I loved this idea, for some reason. It also makes a binder full of materials look connected, as if they all belong to the same book. 

The only time I do not use the same font is when I type up a test. The font I use is pretty casual looking and some things, like decimal points, are hard to read at times. For a test, I use a more "boring" font, but continue to use that same font for all tests. 

I also keep the formatting at the top of the page the same for every assignment -- name blank, period blank, date blank taking up row one; title bolded and underlined for row two. These are simple things that make all the student handouts, labs, quizzes, and activities look similar. 

2. An Organized File Cabinet

I am that crazy person down the hall frantically searching for a right tab file folder because I only have center tab and left tab folders. All of my file cabinets are as neatly organized as possible -- I use alternating tabs labeled with blue ball point pen. I don't try to keep a huge amount of files, since most of them are electronic anyways, but I do file away the extra copies I have. It provides easy access to find something for an absent student, to share with a colleague, or to make extra copies of.

I have four file cabinet drawers currently: Biology, Chemistry, Biology Tests, and Chemistry Tests. I find that keeping separate drawers for tests saves a lot of space. I keep all the "Do Not Write On This Test" copies of tests clipped/rubber banded together for easy access later. The 9th grade academy at the high school has a re-test policy so there is a good chance I will need to access all of those tests at a later date. 

Hopefully sometime soon I will have the chance to go through and further organize my file cabinet. My goal is to color code the folders into categories: Quizzes, Labs, Test Review, and Classwork. 

3. Class Color Codes/File Bins

I teach two preps and have an alternating schedule -- Biology, Chemistry, Biology, Chemistry -- which can make it complicated to keep my head on straight at times.  To help myself out, I assigned Biology the color Green and Chemistry Red. The agenda/essential question for each class is written in this color on the board along with any upcoming lab, test, quiz, or project due dates. 

I keep a file bin of all my copies for the week organized by class and day of the week. I have a "catch all" folder for each subject that holds original copies, scantrons, test answer keys, assignment answer keys, etc. All of this eventually gets filed away somewhere else, but lands in this folder until I have time to sort through it. I have a folder for each day of the week for both subjects. All my biology folders are in the front, all my chemistry folders are in the back. At the very back, I keep extra file folders.

As I make copies for the week, I put them in the folder for that day. I can easily move the copies around if my plans change. On test days, I keep all of the test materials in the folder (periodic table, scantrons, test copies, and after-test activity). I have found that this prevents me from giving Class A a study guide, but forgetting it in Class B. 

I have absolutely loved this system so far. As soon as I make copies, I put them in a folder -- which has cut down on a lot of counter/desk clutter. If a student is absent, I can easily find the missing work from earlier in the week. I typically empty out the folder and file away the extras when I have new materials to put in the folder for the following week. 

4. A Teacher Binder

Not only do I have a teacher binder (as most do) but I have a particular kind of binder, with labs/dividers/inserts in my particular font (see #1). My binder has eight sections: Attendance, Seating Charts, Calendar, Lesson Plans, Grades, Assessments, Biology Standards, Chemistry Standards. Most of these sections are pretty self-explanatory, but I'll explain a few of them. 

I use current seating charts to also number lab groups or project groups. As I change the seating chart or lab groups, I replace it in the binder. I also post a copy on the back bulletin board in my room. 

The lessons plan tab is by far my largest tab. I keep all of my lesson plans and will eventually file them away. I created a template unique for my schedule that has three sections: Biology, Chemistry, and Advisement. There is a box for each of those for every day of the week. I also put a notes section at the end of each class for lab setup notes and other reminders. The boxes are pretty large. I usually divide the biology and chemistry boxes in half and use the upper box for objectives and activities and the bottom box for warm-ups and homework. I always always write in pencil. I change plans often and have to erase things. I'll create a post later with the lesson plan template I use. 

The grades section also has all of the IEP/504 accommodations for my current students. I find this very handy when I have to quickly recall which students get extended time and which do not. Highly recommend! 


I'm sure there are other quirks I have, but these are the ones I experience every single day. What classroom quirks do other teachers out there have?