August Update | Planning and Resources and Fun

August is such a bittersweet month!

We usually take our family vacation in August. The weather is the best. The days are long and luxurious.

But there’s something about it that always makes me feel like I better hurry up because the first day of school is right around the corner.

This year that is particularly true. I didn’t finish my reports until late in the summer and because my training was the week after school got out, and I hosted a training here in Portland, summer didn’t really start until the end of July.

Add to all of that the fact that I’m having surgery (yes, again, don’t ask) on Monday, and it all makes for a pretty short Summer 2019.

But I’m making the most of every moment, getting lots done, and having a great time. Here are a few shots of the fun I’ve had this summer.

Now that I’m back in town and August has officially begun, I’m getting back to work in earnest.

3rd Grade Block Rotation

In recent years I’ve found that my block rotation has come together pretty easily. When I first started teaching I was pretty rigid in my thinking about when various blocks, trips, projects and experiences needed to happen. In those years, the block rotation was a finely cultivated puzzle that could easily fall apart with the slightest adjustment.

But in the past few years, I’ve become a bit more easy-going about it all. I mean, I prefer to have field trips come at the end of the block or to have my play just before a break, but it’s not the end of the world if it doesn’t happen.

Well, this year, there is so much that happens in 3rd grade, that I’m afraid I’ve gone back to my old ways. Between the Hebrew festivals, the cooking, gardening and shelter projects and all of the trips — once again my block rotation feels like a carefully constructed accomplishment. Cross your fingers for no unexpected injuries this year or it will all come crumbling down around me!

Here are the basics of my 3rd grade block rotation. One thing that’s unique about this year’s block rotation is that in addition to including the imaginative content and the skill content, I included a column that details the project, trip or festival we will be working on that block (I’ve tried to include a little about that below, but it’s a lot of information to include here.)

• Hebrew Stories, Genesis — painting — berry-picking, jam-making
• Hebrew Stories (Cain, Abel, Noah, Jacob) — Math: Linear Measurement, Time, Place-Value Review — Michaelmas, Rosh Hoshana, apple-picking and processing
• Shelters #1– Language Arts: Grammar, Parts of Speech, verb tenses, phonics — Sukkot, beach trip, pumpkin patch, lanterns, candle-making
• Hebrew Stories (Joseph) — Math: Volume Measurement, Cooking, Grains — Martinmas, mill trip, vegetable gleaning, Thanksgiving Feast
• Hebrew Stories (Moses) — Language Arts: Time, Calendar, Lunar Calendar, Hebrew Alphabet, Phonics, Book Report — Calendar Project, latkes, winter assembly
• Hebrew Stories (10 Commandments, Jericho) — Math: Long Division and Multiplication, Money — no project or trip
• Shelters #2 — Language Arts: Shelter report-writing — Igloo Trip, Shelter Projects
• Fibers and Hebrew Stories (Esther) — Language Arts: Composition, Phonics — Class Play, Fiber trip
• Shelters #3 — Housebuilding — Class building project, auction project, wheat planting
• Farming — Math: Perimeter, Area, Geometry — May Day, work on garden plot, overnight farm trip
• Home Surroundings: Occupations — Visiting Speakers — Occupations trips, TBD

I hope this makes sense. It looks a lot more clear in the Word document table I put together to hand out to parents at the beginning of the year.

It’s going to be a fantastic year, but there’s a lot to do!

I usually try to map out each block through December, with just a rough idea for the blocks that come after that. Because my kids are older, I have time during school breaks to do the rest of my planning and I find that just having the basic academic content and some notes about resources is enough so I can put the block together over a few days during a break. I wouldn’t leave everything to the last minute, but having a rough idea of the academic focus, the resources I’m going to use to pull it all together and the trips and projects planned in advance makes me feel pretty confident about being able to plan the daily content break to break. (Well, that occupations block at the end of the year might take a little extra energy ahead of time.)

Planning Supplies

You know I’m a sucker for planning supplies — I’ve blogged about it before (I also recorded a podcast.). My planning line-up changes slightly every year, and this is what I’m using this year. Apparently I just can’t stop writing about planning — I wrote a post last month about what I’m using this year, but I thought I’d include some photos this time, so you can see how I use them.

Plum Paper Planner — This was a highlight in my last planning post and many of you have told me that you also love the customizable planner that Plum Paper puts out. Last year, it wasn’t a part of my daily or weekly planning (because of another planner I love, which I’ll talk about in a minute) so I thought about foregoing it this year. But, in the end, I decided there are just too many great things about this planner. There are organizational structures specifically for teachers, that I just don’t find in my other planners (birthdays, parent communication pages, etc.) So this year I got the smaller 7X9 version, hoping that will encourage me to use it with more regularity. I love it already.

Dick Blick Sketch Book — I get a large sketchbook for every school year and bring it along to my summer training. Whenever I am mapping out a block or fleshing out the big ideas of teaching a concept, I use this book. During the summer I get quite artistic with it, though during the school year it tends to be much more factual, planning content. Here are some highlights from my training this summer.

The past couple of years I have used a beautiful linen-bound book from Semikolon for this purpose. I love the feel of that paper and the cover, but I just couldn’t find it before my training this year, so I went back to the Blick book.

Hobonichi Cousin Avec — Now, this one takes some explaining. The Hobonichi is a Japanese planner that uses a paper called Tomoe River Paper. I LOVE this paper. It is quite thin, which means that the planner can have A LOT of pages and still not be heavy to lug around. AND, despite the pages being thin, ink does not bleed to the other side (even fountain pen ink!). The thin pages mean that in this little book there are two different yearly spreads, weekly spreads and a page for each day. At first I was worried that one page would not be enough for my daily lesson plan, but this past year I found that one page was plenty (and if I needed a little extra room I had another blank book, just in case.)

Now, this planner is not for everyone. I love the paper so much, I’m willing to overlook the downsides, but here they are.

• No academic year version. Because it is a Japanese planner, the months don’t quite align with the US school year (they have a January start and an April start). But, the “avec” version of the planner (which is what I get) splits the year into two parts — January-June and July-December. It’s not perfect, but it works pretty well. So this year I’ll be using the 2nd book of 2019 and the first book of 2020 (which I’ll order when it is released on September 1).
• Monday start on the monthly spread. You know that the rest of the world considers Monday to be the first day of the week, right? And that our US planners generally have the weekly spread start with Monday, but the monthly spread starts with Sunday? We’re the strange ones here. It took some getting used to, but I’ve adjusted to being able to look at a monthly view and recognize Monday as the first day of the week. (See the pictures below to see what I mean.)
• One year, two books. Now, depending on your perspective, this could be a benefit or a drawback. Splitting the year into two books means you have less to carry around — benefit. But, because the 2020 books are released in September, at this time of year, when I’m planning the 2019-20 school year, I really wish I had the first half of 2020 now. I make it work — I use my Plum Paper planner and the 2019 book does include a yearly spread for 2020. So it works out, but I would be so much happier if Hobonichi made a US academic year planner (or they released the 2020 books earlier in 2019.)
• Needing an extra book. As I mentioned, usually I was able to fit my whole daily lesson plan on the daily page, but there were times when I needed to write out more of my story, so I kept an additional notebook that I carried along with this planner. (Incidentally, that notebook also used Tomoe River Paper.)

Here are some shots of my beloved Hobonichi, so you can see how I use it.

An extra notebook — I’ve used a variety of notebooks to just have on hand for overflow. The way I use this notebook goes back to my bullet journal days. I don’t create artistic spreads the way I used to, but I do just turn to the next page in the book when I need to write something down. Some years I have maintained an index at the front of the book and written down the page number and the content (the Clairefontaine My Essential book is great for this) but last year the book I used did not have page numbers. It was also a huge book, with lots of pages. This year I plan on using smaller books, so I’ll probably end up using 3 or 4 over the course of the year. Hobonichi just started putting out an a5 notebook, so that’s what I’ll use during 3rd grade. If you’re not a nut for that Tomoe River Paper like I am, I think the Clairefontaine or Rhodia books are the best (and they come in both lined and dot grid, so make sure you get what you want). That’s what I used for several years and I love looking at my little collections of notebooks with all of my lesson plans.

Okay, well, it’s a beautiful Sunday here in Portland, so I’m going to get some morning planning done so I can go enjoy the day.

What are your favorite planning supplies? Post in the comments.