It’s August which means time to get serious about planning for the coming school year. Thusfar in the summer I’ve done lots of thinking and reading about the next school year, but the year doesn’t feel like it’s taking shape until I’ve got my lesson planner and I start filling it in.

I received my planner from Amazon about a week ago, and now I’m busily filling it in.

Over the years I’ve used a couple different types of planners. Usually I have a weekly lesson plan book as well as a regular calendar. And though I’m pretty good at the computer and my phone and I sometimes use the calendar features on them, I really like the feeling of a solid paper calendar. Here are my favorites.

The At a Glance Teacher’s Planner is definitely my favorite planner. It is set up vertically (the days of the week are listed across the top of the columns) which somehow feels more intuitive to me and it has plenty of record keeping pages in the back, as well as a couple of seating charts. It’s thin but has a substantial, sturdy cover. It definitely makes it through the school year with minimal damage. This year I bought the undated version (I didn’t find a dated one anywhere) which works pretty well, as it allows me to just leave out weeks for school breaks.

The other planner I have used is this one created by Stephanie Embrey. I like the arrangement of this book. It is similar to the At a Glance planner except that it is set up horizontally (with the names of the days of the week down along the left side of the page.) This was a change for me after using the At a Glance calendar, but I adjusted to it quickly enough. It also has lots of great features. There are plenty of record keeping pages, a couple of seating charts, a couple of maps, a chart for figuring percentages quickly, and a place for logging parent communication. It also has folder flaps on the insides of the front and back covers for holding loose papers, which was really useful until the glue started to come loose at the end of the school year. This is a much thicker, more substantial planner, but it has so many features it might be worth carrying around the extra bulk.

My main complaint about this planner is that it is definitely not as durable as the At a Glance planner. As I mentioned, the folder flaps came loose at the end of the year, the cover edges became frayed and I sometimes worried that papers that I had stuck within its covers would not be protected and might fall out. It just doesn’t seem strong enough to keep all of that extra bulk in tact. Still, it serviced me well over the course of the year. If you appreciate extra features and don’t abuse your plan book too much this is probably the best book for you.

As I mentioned, in addition to carrying a teacher’s planner, I also carry a regular academic year calendar. A few years ago I found my absolute favorite weekly academic year calendar and it’s made by a company called Mixed Role Productions. I love this calendar because it is compact, comes with a little bookmark to mark the current week and it is an August to August calendar. I also just love the typeface that is used which has a sweet handwritten look. It also comes in several fresh, bright colors — I used the orange two years ago, the green last year and this year I have the “grape” color.  I’ve bought this book for the past five years and I love it so much that I’ve had my mother buy it for me since I moved away from the town where I originally found it. Now that I know it’s on Amazon, next year I’ll be able to get it myself.

One of the things that I love most about Waldorf Education is how teachers are trained to not take things simply for their surface value. The person-house-tree drawing is a really good example of the Waldorf teacher’s impulse to see the deeper meaning behind all that we do.

Audrey McAllen’s Reading Children’s Drawings is a great resource for interpreting children’s drawings.

She goes through the best way to set up a drawing experience for the child so the end result will be a good picture of the child’s developmental stage. Following her explanation of setting up the environment she goes through different aspects of the drawing and how we might use them to understand the developmental stage of the child. I have always used my intuitive sense when it comes to understanding these drawings but McAllen’s book is a wonderful resource for deepening our understanding of our students drawings.

I just had to share my favorite book for songs about the seasons.

 Sing Through the Seasons by Marlys Swinger – This book is full of great seasonal songs that can take you right through fourth grade. The melodies are not pentatonic, so the Waldorf purists would not consider them appropriate for kindergarten or first grade, but I have known many kindergarten and first grade Waldorf teachers to sing these songs with their students. The tunes are catchy, fun, and very readily suggest movements and dramatization. I’ve never listened to the accompanying CD, so I can’t attest to its quality, but I imagine it would be a great help in learning the songs. I have had no problem tinkering out the melodies on my recorder or piano, though, as they are pretty predictable. The illustrations in the book are also quite sweet and I could imagine using them for chalkboard drawing inspiration.

It appears to only come in hardback, and my quick peek at Amazon suggested it was pretty pricey, but for its long-term usefulness, the extra price is worth it!

I know it isn’t bright and sunny everywhere, but in my neck of the woods spring arrived a bit early and it has me feeling like getting outside and moving! As a teacher, leading games was never my strong suit, but as my teaching years went on I appreciated more and more the value of moving with my students, especially when a good (sometimes competitive) game was involved.

I often found the key to a successful games class was knowing when to bring a new and exciting game. With everything else that teachers need to do, the temptation to keep playing an old familiar game is strong, but there are some great resources out there with plenty of ideas for games, so it doesn’t have to be too difficult to come up with something new.

The New Games Book – A friend recently loaned me this book and I love it! It probably has about 50 different games, all with clear explanations and photographs to go with them. The photos really helped me because I often have a hard time visualizing games when they are explained with words. The book is broken down into sections determined by the number of players required for each game, which is an infinitely sensible way to organize the book. Waldorf teachers usually teach children a game with a story, or sometimes just a little image for the children to hold onto while they are playing the game. Many of the games in this book include an imagination along with them (catch the dragon’s tail, for example) but for others you’ll need to come up with your own imagination. Some of the games are old favorites that we all played when we were kids, and others are so new and different that I’ve never seen them played anywhere. You’ll have to use your intuition when it comes to determining which games are appropriate for the ages of your children. When in doubt it’s a good idea to stick with more collaborative games in the younger grades, increasing the level of competition and individuality as the children get older.

Games Children Play – This is one of the standard Waldorf games books, and it is quite good. If you’re not sure about trusting your intuition when it comes to determining appropriate games, this book can give you a guide. It follows the pedagogical decisions about appropriate games in a very logical way, even giving some explanation in each section. The book is broken down according to age, which makes it the perfect companion to The New Games Book. One flaw of this book, though, is that I found that it didn’t give enough games. My students and I ran through the games in each section and I found that they needed more new games. Still, this is a great book to have, and close to essential for helping to learn the pedagogical reasons behind choosing appropriate games.

Child’s Play 1 and 2 – I don’t have much personal experience with this book, but I’ve seen it on every shelf and it seems to be the “other” Waldorf games book. It seems that in my cursory glance through it I found that the games were most suited to the younger grades. If any of you have experience with it please post in the comments.

Have fun and get out there and move with your students!