Classroom Lesson Planning FREEBIES for YOU! Happy New Year...

Aloha blogging friends,

I only have a couple of goals for this New Year...
1. to be a happier, healthier me (live each day to the fullest, lose a few pounds and be positive)
2. share more on my blog and tpt (hence the post below)

I love free things and organization, so I am going to share the three things that help me to achieve this in my classroom when I am planning my lessons each week. You can watch a little video of me sharing these with you here and then you can click on the links below to get your own.

So, here is the big question. How do I organize my year?

Well I start off by filling in a very simple one page word document that is a birds eye view of my year. This has been invaluable in keeping me on track each year and knowing what my focus is. It's not cute, it's not really meant to be cute, there isn't room :-). To get it in word click here.

The second thing that I do is fill in a week-by-week overview. Here is where I break down what I filled in for each month and then copy and paste all of the things that I have purchased from tpt, things I have created from my hard drive, etc. Again, this is in word and has nothing fancy so you can easily fill it in to your choosing by clicking here. I did also upload a .pdf version so you can see what mine looks like by clicking here.

Now here is the best part. For each week I just copy and paste from my Week by Week Schedule onto my Peek at my Week. It is very quick and I use it as my guide all week. I just print it two-sided and put it in a page protector. At the end of the week I pop it into my binder. I have uploaded it for free in my tpt shop. Just click and it is yours and it is editable.

All of these documents are stored in my binder and I bring it back and forth from school to home daily. I also have parent contact info, important papers from meetings, etc. in there as well. I keep every binder at the end of the year for future reference.

I hope this helps you in some itty bitty way!

In other news I finally finished my All About Australia Unit that I taught about in October. Yes, it was finished except for the finishing touches (that took me all day yesterday) to complete. Now I am on to Penguin Parade: An Antarctica Adventure. I taught this unit in December. I will be back soon with more updates and how I travel around the world (all year) in my classroom. I have taught this way for the past eight years and absolutely l.o.v.e it!!

Happy New Year!