New Planner

So, for the longest time, I have hand written my plans.  And when I say plans, I mean that very loosely. They have mostly been a skeleton, a layout, an outline of what I was going to do for that week. I have always been very grateful that I was allowed to be that way with my plans. My activities were always rigorous and relevant and my students have always made gains, so my plans weren't a worry for any of my administrators. 

Well, my friends, the tide has turned.  Now we have to have certain things in our plans that are required. I have tried to get away without doing them this way (I'm such a rebel that way), but my fear of not being that perfect student has gotten the better of me. lol. I mean, when I got an A- in my Master's class, I freaked out...lol. 

Anyway, since I had never even thought about doing plans this way, I was a little overwhelmed about how to make it all fit in. So, then I turned to my friend Traci, over at Dragonflies in First Grade.  She is a genius, I tell ya! She has created this planners that you can make to work for you. OR you can order the custom one, which is what I did. She was great to work with and my planner is perfect! It fits everything in it that I need to and it's not overwhelming to look at! Which was my biggest concern, since I've always had the minimum to look at. Plus, it's cute! I love how she used my favorite colors. Makes me somewhat happy to look at them - ha!

 So, now that I have my first week planned in my new planner, I think the rest of the year will go much easier.  Check out her FAQ page on her planner {HERE}

My center menu I'm keeping the same since my centers don't always run from Monday to Friday. Like next week, we'll start on Tuesday, but we might not do Thursday because of our Fun Run that's planned for the whole school, which will make our center menu last even longer.

I don't have a title for my Listening Center because I forgot to look at what books I had in my bin before I left Friday. So I'll just fill it in on Monday.

If you want to see how I run centers, check out {THIS} post.