How I plan these days

I thought today I would post a picture of what I was working on while one of classes is on a field trip-a free planning time woo-hoo!  This year I am doing my year plan a little different.  In the past I have created the standard spreadsheet with the rotation dates and the grades and typed in what I am doing each week.  This is usually a mess by mid-November because classes get off track or a project requires an extra class period.  I saw a post from a pinterest pinning art teacher that they print out their board and cut out the pictures and tape them into their plan book.  I could not tell you how brilliant I thought this was!  I loved the idea of the visual in the book.  This idea brought me to my own way of doing things.  Instead of taping/ gluing these into my plan book I create "mini-plans" with the picture as inspiration for the project and the website attached and beside the picture write a quick description with intended grade to do the lesson, materials or a couple of sentences with "how to".  I tape them onto pieces of white paper with holes punched in the side.  I can do a couple of pictures while kids are working on their pictures (in between monitoring their progress), or what I normally do, bring it home and while watching t.v.  I love that I have a visual and I have found that the reference of pictures inspires me to do the project with my students.  I can feel so energized seeing the project on the computer but then forget all about and never do the project.  This has been so wonderful to help me plan the year and I can change my plan month by month as needed or get re-inspired to do something else.  The projects have been better that ever.  I am sharing this idea at our teachers meeting this month so I wanted to share it with you also.  Hope this helps or inspires you!

Pages printed from computer of boards.

Cut out pictures with description.

Another view.  I put similar projects or things that would make a unit together.