February 3, 2014

Planbook.com Giveaway! No more planbook problems!

Raise your hand if you have been effected by the polar vortex and had a snow day or delay this winter! Raise your hand if you crossed out, highlighted, drew arrows, erased, 'x'-ed out and rearranged your plan book only to have another snow day later that week!
Pre-made plan books are not designed for art teachers. We have bizarre schedules, rotations, class periods and our often asked to rearrange our day to accommodate all types of school events. When I began teaching,  I designed my own plan book with excel which worked for my school and our 4 day rotation. It always worked real nice for the first few weeks of the year and then came the assemblies,  concerts and  half days followed by arrows, highlighting and lots of rewriting and moving of plans. Classes were behind, ahead and no grade level was doing the same thing in a single rotation. It was like having 20 preps instead of 7! 

Then last school year our district  wanted us to add 'I can' statements and evidence to each lesson. Now, I just couldn't keep up with a written plan book  I was spending way too much time writing down the same info.
The final straw...
At the end of last school year I packed my car up with boxes for things to work on over the summer.  When I unpacked I noticed my plan book was soaked...my AC unit was leaking and water got all over the passenger floor. Even better, my first year of elementary plans were written in my favorite non-permanent red G2 pen...my plan book became a pile of pink paper...my whole first year of elementary...gone! ACK!  So I knew I had to do something.
The planbook that only got a bit wet...

At the start of the year, a fellow techie teacher told me about planbook.com. It came with a free 30 day trial so I decided to give it a shot. IT.IS.AMAZING. I can make color coded templates, copy lessons to each class, bump lessons if we have an event that changes things and make no days in case of a snow day! No more arrows, highlighters, erasing and most importantly no more rewriting plans! I write each lesson once and move it accordingly!
Screen Shot of this week's plan! I love color coding!
The program costs $12 for a year, and less if you get more people from your district to join. Even so, $12 is a pretty fair price considering the time and erasers you save! They also have an app for when you are on the go. Plans can be printed or shared with others (who get a link to your plans-they can see but not edit the info). You can link standards, upload handouts, and keep notes. The plan book can be modified to accommodate any schedule or rotation, whether you work Monday-Friday or rotate by days. All in all it is a win-win, and I am definitely keeping up on my plans better than I have ever done before and I only take about 20 minutes to type my plans up for the week.
 Best of all Planbook.com is giving one of my readers a year subscription! Woot! The first easiest entry is leaving a blog comment about how you plan then share with others on Facebook and Twitter! Hurry, this awesome giveaway ends February 21st!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
So if your plan book has been giving you nightmares, check out planbook.com and get a 30 day free trial, and if you are lucky you may win a year subscription!

2 comments:

  1. I have dabbled with Planbook. This post makes me know that the full commitment is well worth it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You will love it! Give it a try, it's worth it! It makes planning enjoyable <--is that possible?

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