Didn't Win the Giveaway? Freebie for Everyone!

I was so excited to post that Liz was the winner of my giveaway for a custom lesson planning template! But I did feel a little bad leaving the rest of my followers high and dry.

Dana asked if I'd be willing to share my lesson plan template as is, and I thought it was a great idea, but I realized that MY plans might not be very useful for you, especially since it's not in a common font and a PDF won't let you edit easily.

So I deleted away some of my stuff, and made this into a basic table that YOU can modify. You can change the font, tint the boxes, and whatever works for you.

In case you missed my last post, here's why I love this template!

I don't have to write things over and over again. If I always do a spelling pre-test on Wednesdays during spelling, I don't have to write it each week. If Susie always has speech at 10:20 on Friday, it's on my template already.

Because my specials were never in the same block (so every day's schedule was a little different), having a two-page spread at a glance made it easy to see my plans- and then I had an extra column on the right for my To Do list items that didn't change from week to week. It's also a great place to record weekly items like spelling lists, vocabulary words, reading story, etc.

Simply put, a little work up front to personalize my lesson plan template saves me an incredible amount of time over the course of the year.

A few tips for customizing:

• You can always right click on any cell of the table, and you will usually have the option to split the cell in half (if, like me, not everything happens on an even time interval!). You can split horizontally or vertically. 
• You can also select two or more cells, and usually, you have the option to merge them (again, just right click!). I merge cells going across for things like morning work or lunch, which are the same every day. I merge cells going down for bigger blocks of time.
• Use a light gray tint to make the specials, lunch, dismissal, etc. stand out easily!
• Make a checklist off to the side for whatever you will need to do EVERY week. For me, most of my centers stay the same each week but I change the activity, so I made a list of the centers so I didn't have to write it out (and try to remember all of them) each week.
• Leave space at the top and bottom for reminders each day!
• Don't copy a million plan pages at the beginning of the school year, because you will change the way you want to do things. Type in anything you find yourself writing each week!

If this is helpful for you, please leave a comment to say thank you! It makes my day :)

Click here to get the FREE .doc, .docx, and .pdf starter files from TeachersPayTeachers!

NOTE: For more tips about how to customize this template, see my post HERE!