Planner Tour: 2015-2016 teacher and home planner

I am so excited I can hardly contain myself: my 2015-2016 planner is printed, assembled, and ready for use! I have been working hard on updating my planner for the next school year for months now, and I am so thrilled with the results. It may seem early to be talking about next school year, but I use a lot of my summer to plan out the upcoming school year, so I knew I wanted to have it printed and set up before the mad dash to the finish line got underway.

I decided this was the perfect time to jump into my first video, since there is so much to show you inside my planner. Sorry the quality isn't as clear as it should be- I promise I did my best! I have a lot to learn about video-making. In the meantime I hope the video is helpful and gives you a good sense of everything I have in my new planner!

Yesterday I shared how I set up my planner, including the binding system and accessories I use. If you missed it, you can check it out here:

The 2015-2016 line of planners is posted in my store as well! You can get the whole shebang like me or just get one or more sections, depending on your needs. I'm super excited about them! You can get the exact one I have (with several other pieces, like seating charts, recorder karate records, and a music classroom inventory spreadsheet) here:

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How I Set Up My Planner: 2015-16 teacher and home planner

Guys, I can't even begin to describe how excited I am. I have my 2015-16 planner printed and in my hands!! Although I'm going to be deviating slightly from my usual "Mommy Monday" and "Teacher Tuesday" posts this week, I decided to share these posts in these slots because my planner is THE single most important thing that I use to organize my life at home and at school. So this week both my Monday and Tuesday posts will apply to both Mommy-ing and Teaching :D

I loved the planner I made and used this school year (so much so that my very first post on this blog was all about that planner!). I didn't think it was possible, but I love my new planner is even more!! A lot of the basic format is the same, but I've streamlined the inside, made a bunch of cover designs that all coordinate with the rest of the planner so they are interchangeable, added some new pages, and even figured out how to have laminated tabs! :) I'll be giving you a tour of the inside tomorrow, but today I wanted to talk about how I set it up to make the most of my all-in-one planner.

I have my pages printed on 28lb paper- the rest of the planner creation I do at home. I am still deeply in love with the arc notebooks from Staples. Having the flexibility to move pages around like a 3-ring binder while still laying flat like a spiral-bound notebook is just unbeatable, in my opinion. And because I completely DIY the inside, and use this cheap hole punch from Levenger, it is extremely cost-effective. See how nice it is?

(Side note: the rings in the picture are a little bigger than the ones I regularly use because I'm still using the smaller ones on my current planner.)

I used the same paper tabs as I did this past year. I love the colors and how easy it is to replace if they wear out or you want to change the labels, but they were definitely a bit flimsy. So this year I laminated them! I just used a single-sided laminating sheet. Double-sided lamination won't work for this because you need a complete seal for the lamination to stick and you don't want to laminate over the sticky (and repositionable!) part on the back of the tabs.

I actually use the single-sided laminating sheets for some of my planner pages as well, for things like cleaning checklists that I want to be able to re-use several times, I laminate the page and use a wet erase marker to write on it. The ink comes off easily with a wet paper towel but won't rub off from the other paper. Since the sheets are slightly bigger than the 8.5x11 paper, I had enough space to laminate my tabs on the same sheet, then just cut around the paper and the tabs and voila! I also re-punched the page after I laminated it (which my cheap-o punch handled just fine).

I also have a pen loop and zippered pouch at the back of my planner. I have used both this year and they have held up really well. I keep some blank cards and postage stamps in the pouch, and any time I get a handout in a meeting and don't know where to put it, I throw those in there too. Super handy! The small blue clip in the picture is magnetic. I found some at Walmart on clearance earlier this year and they are awesome! I keep the current month clipped with the current week so I can easily flip back and forth, since those are the pages I tend to use the most often.

Two more things and then I promise I'll stop gushing! :D

You all know how much I love my washi tape. Besides being colorful and fun, it's strong and repositionable- perfect for things that I want to keep in my planner but be able to change out too! I print a copy of my class schedule and district yearly calendar separately and tape them into my planner with washi tape. Inevitably those calendars and schedules tend to change, so this way I can easily change it out when that happens. Plus it adds that little punch of color!

In my recipe section, I have some of these self-adhesive pockets. I keep some of my staple recipes written out on small cards and keep them in those pockets, which are stuck to the pages of the planner. I was unsure of how well they would stay in the pockets, but I have not had any issues with paper falling out this year, so I'm sticking with the same system this year.

That's about it! Putting your planner together is a very personal thing that depends so much on your style, your life, and your needs. Hopefully you got a useful tip or two from my list! I'd love to see and hear how you have "tricked out" your planners as well :) Don't forget to come back tomorrow to see the inside- SO EXCITING!! :D (**updated: check out the complete tour here!)

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Teacher Tuesday: centers as music class incentives

I'm returning to the topic of behavior management today to tell you about the incentives that I use in my classroom. I have already written about my individualized system that I use to reinforce positive behavior with "happy notes"- you can read more about those in this post (and you really should, if you haven't yet, because those little notes have made a huge difference in my classroom!). Today I want to tell you about a new whole-class incentive I have started using this year. 

I believe that one of the most important things that we as music teachers can teach our students is working cooperatively (and the interdependence that comes from that). Music is one of the only school subjects that truly requires students to depend on each other in order to succeed. I try to take advantage of every opportunity to emphasize that aspect of my classroom, because I think it is such an important life skill and they get so few opportunities to practice it!

To that end, although I have several systems for dealing with behavior individually, I emphasize the whole-class behavior management systems the most, encouraging classes to work together towards a common goal. You can read more about how my system works in my posts on behavior management, but basically each class earns points for their behavior each class period, and when they earn a certain number of points they get a prize. There are 3 levels of incentives: the first 2 are centers that I choose, and the 3rd is a free choice "party". 

The first 2 times that the class earns the incentive, we use the next class period to do centers. I use centers in my regular lessons as well, but I use them sparingly. For their reward centers day, I usually incorporate a couple of centers where I know they will be practicing content skills, and the rest encourage them to enjoy music in different ways. Out of all the ones we have used, here are some of my students' favorites:

One of the most popular is the listening station, where students can pick their favorite songs from my preset list on the computer. This is different from the usual listening station, though, because there are no headphones- they listen to it through the speakers. I have a second center nearby that is a dancing station, and the listening station students do double-duty as DJ's for the dancers as well. The dancers are not allowed to give input into the songs the choose, so it makes for some funny moments and the kids think it's tons of fun. Kaboom sticks are another popular station, and I usually have a couple of iPad stations. You can read more about those in my previous posts on centers, but these are great ways to incorporate some skill practice while still keeping it fun.

I used to use only free choice parties as my whole-class incentive, but using centers days as rewards has allowed me to infuse a little more meaningful learning into the reward time, which makes it easier for me to give them more frequent positive reinforcement- it's a win-win! Do you use centers as a reward in your classroom? How do you do it? Share your ideas and experiences below.

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Mommy Monday: updated art corner for preschoolers

I'm excited to share a quick, easy, and super-cheap update I made to my preschooler girls' art corner!

Let's take a look at the "before":

Obviously, the only change I made was to add the containers hanging on the wall, but let me tell you, it has made a huge difference! Two things changed since I first had everything stored in the tub under the table: as the girls got older, they 1) acquired, and became more interested in, lots of different coloring books and 2) decided they liked mixed-media projects (well, one of my girls especially). Inside that tub, I had everything organized in different containers by type, with a little space for different kinds of paper:

This system just wasn't working for us anymore, though, because the girls would inevitably dump out all three containers so they could use 2 pencils, a marker, and 5 crayons, and the tub was just getting too crowded (and, honestly, we were at the point of keeping overflow on the floor next to the tub) because of all the additional coloring books etc that the girls were using.

The containers on the rails solve both of these problems. Obviously, getting the writing implements out of the tub makes them easier to access and frees up space in the tub. I actually was also able to bring in the pipe cleaners, which were in a haphazard pile with some other toys before!

But the part I'm really excited about is the container you see on the far left of the picture above. Notice anything?!? That's right, I have crayons, pencils, and markers all mixed together in the same container (*gasp*)! I have two of these, actually- one for each girl. I labeled those with a name sticker so they will know whose is whose.

Because these containers pop right off the railing, the girls can now take one container and just use that, instead of dumping out every single container to get what they need for one picture! I also won't have to deal with the arguments over who is using the green crayon anymore, since they each have their own (I always have had 2 of each color for this very reason- they just couldn't find or keep track of them before because they would rather argue than look through the pile for the color they want...). Whether or not this will actually continue to happen in practice? Only time will tell, but for now I'm excited about the results :)

If you're interested in setting this up yourself, the rail system is super-cheap at IKEA. This is the rail I used and these are the containers that fit on the rails (they have them in several colors). I spent a total of $12 on these things!

What do you use to organize your art supplies? I would love to hear your ideas!

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