Binders galore

I love binders! Know why? Because they make organization so easy. I have 2 binders that I use and my students have their own Spanish binder as well. Here's my first binder. Look for future posts to see my sub binder and my students' binders.

My Lesson Plan Binder

I am on a cart which means that my schedule changes every day. So I put my schedule on the outside of my LP binder since I take it everywhere anyway. That way, I don't show up to the wrong place at the wrong time. (It's only happened once in 2 years so that's not too bad!) Plus, I put my schedule in Spanish so that if I ever lose it, it comes back to me pretty quickly. The kids think it's cool too.

When I first started my lesson plan binder, I had like 8 different sections. I've narrowed it down to three now, but added two extra in case I feel like I'm missing anything. The three sections are weekly calendar, yearly calendar, and grades/class lists/IEPs.

My weekly calendar inclues my lesson plans and any special events during the week. I love to be color coded so the blue stands for days when I miss classes (and I include the reason so I remember). The pink helps me differentiate between my 8th hour classes because one is M/W/F and the other is T/Th. Anything highlighted in green is a staff meeting. I also write at the top of the day if there are any after school activities such as concerts or open houses. With my lesson plans (bullet points), I read over them at the end of the day and if something needs to get changed for next year, I leave myself a post-it note so it will pop out at me when I review my lesson plans.

The yearly calendar is something the deans at my school put out and it's amazing. Any school events (after-school, assembly, testing, etc.) that are already planned are written on a calendar and passed out. This is helpful to me for a quick at-a-glance or when I transfer the activities to my weekly plans.

The last section (and there is no picture, sorry) is my class lists/grades/IEP section. I print off class lists and write their Spanish names next to their English names to help me learn both. Then I also put their grades right on these papers. I like to hand write them first so I have a paper record before transfering them to the computer. Something new that I am going to add this year is IEPs. A fellow teacher in my school puts all the IEP at-a-glance for each class right behind the class list so it's all together. Instead of carrying around my SPED binder and my LP binder, now I just need one!

I hope this helps anyone looking to set up your own lesson plan binder! I prefer setting one up than getting a pre-made one because I can make it my own. My stuff isn't super cute but it is organized and color coded and that's what I like. Is there something that you include in your binder that's not in my that you find helpful? Let me know!

UPDATE (as of 9/21/14)
I added one more section to my teacher binder labeled "meeting notes." I stole this idea from a fellow co-worker because it's a great way to keep important information from any and all staff meetings in one place. At my school, I have a weekly meeting with my dean, an every-other-weekly meeting with the middle school staff, and an almost-every-other-weekly meeting with the whole school. While agendas are typically passed out at meetings, my new notes spot in my binder allows me to write down any pertinent information to me and jot down any questions I may need to follow up on in the future without needed to keep track of an agenda.