THE Planner

Teacher Lesson Planner
by Erin Condren

Alrighty friends, 

There has been all of this debate over whether or not the teacher lesson planner by Erin Condren is worth the money. So I have decided to share some pictures with you and give you my thoughts about the planner. If you are on the fence I understand why! My friend Kheila at Two Friends in First told me about it a couple weeks ago and I said, "You want to spend how much??? On a PLANNER??" After watching the video together my head started spinning and I was trying to decide if it was just teacher hype or if it was worth it. I went home, went onto erincondren.com and looked at as many pictures as I could. I still do not know if I really had a justified reason to buy it, but I decided to take a leap of faith and spend the money.

They have lots of options when you are purchasing! I did decide to get the colored pens, extra sheet protectors, and the pen holder. I also personalized the front cover with my name. I put a note on my order that I would like the colors on my book to match my blog. Which they did, and it turned out great!

Sheet Protectors - In the back of the book

Pen Holder - It is adhesive and you decide where to place it

The Color Pens!! Could you buy something similar at Staples.. YES, but the colors are not going to match and you are going to pay very close if not more than what you pay on her website!

So I have now ordered my planner and then it is the WAITING game! It took about 2 weeks after I placed the order to have it in my hands. Not bad, but when you are dying to hold it and look at it, it feels like an eternity! 

These are some of the silly things that ended up on my Instagram!

When I got home... this was waiting at the door

ugh and of course I was doing the potty dance! 

What is it as soon as you walk in the door you have to the bathroom?

Then it was time to open, but not before a photo shoot :)

There it is... in all its glory :)

Free stickers!! That say Mrs. Zaminski!

Here she is! 

I feel like she needs a name or something?

You can probably tell I am a little nutty.. 

Well I was at Hobby Lobby and I saw this stand and I thought....

It was only $3 and it looks SUPER cute! 

So now that I have told you about the journey to get it here, it is time to analyze this baby! Was it worth all the money and energy I put into it???

You can see from the pictures above what the front and back cover look like. They are a harder laminated cover. The pictures below will show you what all this planner has to offer on the inside. 

In the front it has a Dates tab

Here you will find a listing of dates that would be important to a teacher

Then there is the Absent tab

there are several sheets where you can record your students absence and whether or not they turned in a excuse. Personally I think that is AWESOME! I can never keep track of who turned in notes and I am hoping that this binder will help!

Then the Graph tab

Here you can graph data or just do your seating chart :)

I am loving this year at a glance! You can put the MOST important things here

so that you do not forget them when planning! I am already starting to fill mine in, do not mind the writing :)

Then there is a tab for each month. Here is an example of the month view for July

The numbers for the date are not filled in.. that was a bummer in my opinion!

Other than that I liked the layout!

Behind each month spread is a notes section that just says,

"What's going on in July"

Here is another example of a monthly spread without my writing ;)

Here is the Lessons tab

I really like the lesson layout. My only complaint is that there are only 

42 weeks in the book. I am teaching summer school so 46-50 weeks worth

of planning sheets would have been nice. (It might be something easy I can request for next year)

Student Checklist tab

I think you can see what this is used for!

I wish there would have been a separate grade section in addition to this section

Notes tab

preprinted stickers to use throughout the planner ~ LOVE THESE!

blank ones that you can personalize!

Pocket folder so that you can store items you need

Then the laminating sheets!

A small pouch to hold some cute little items!

two year calendar

So this is my thought. I could either make a document very similar to this or buy one from TPT, but it is going to take time, patience, and a lot of energy just to make the thing. 

I would have to send it to the office supply store to get it printed and bound. It is going to cost you $0.49ish per color page on regular paper (lets say there are 150 pages take that X .49 and it equals out $73.50.) Now you have to pay to get the cover laminated and get it bound together. We are talking close to $100.00 for a finished product! 

Do I think it was worth the $59 I paid for it.... the answer is YES YES YES! I love this planner already. Erin Condren did a fabulous job thinking about what will really work for teachers. I think it will be nice for me to keep all my information in one place and no longer have to worry when I have a meeting. I will just grab it and go! Ordering on the website was easy and their customer service treated me great! I will order from her again, that is FOR SURE! 

I hope this helps if you are on the fence about buying one :)