DIY Lesson Planner

In my last post, I mentioned that I'd developed my own Lesson Planner.  Last year, we used a planner similar to this one, but when my mom-in-law sent me this link for a Unit Study Lesson Planner, I was intrigued.  However, there were a few things about the Unit Study Planner that I didn't care for, and I didn't want to pay much for them, either.  So, I made my own!

First, I experimented with Microsoft Word until I created a layout I thought would work for my needs.  Then, I printed out two sets, one for each school-aged spark plug, bought four sheets of cardstock, and had them bound at Kinko's.  All said and done, I think I paid about $12 for both, rather than the $15 each for the pre-made version.  And, mine's tailored for my personal use as well!

T's is red, his favorite color, and K's is green for the same reason.

Here is T's, above, with block assignments on the left and activities and vocabulary on the right.

K's, above, is backward.  I'll pretend that I wanted to see which layout I like best instead of admitting that this is the result when one doesn't pay close attention to page direction before binding.  :)

I think I will love these.  I can already see, though, that for next year I'll be doing things a bit differently.  For starters, I will buy a slightly higher grade white paper to avoid the ghost imaging from the back sides of the pages.  Secondly, I will take up Kinko's suggestion of adding a plastic sheer cover on the front and back.  Third, printing out a school schedule (shown below) to include would be very helpful (I made our schedule after binding the Lesson Planners - oops!).  These upgrades will raise the cost a bit, but I think I will be happier with the end result if I incorporate them.

As I mentioned earlier, I developed these based on what I think I will need and like for the coming year.  Because of that, I doubt that these would exactly suit anyone else, but if someone would like the Word files for them, either to use as-is or to use as a starter template to alter as needed, leave me a comment or send me an email and I'll be happy to give them out.

Happy planning!