My Teacher Bullet Journal Setup
Disclaimer-There may be some links in this post are affiliate links. This means I will make a small commission if you purchase something using my links, but it is at no cost to you.
Where has summer gone?! It seems just like yesterday that we were wrapping things up for the end of the school year. But alas, the beginning of the new school year will be here before I know it. And one of my summer tasks involves setting up my teacher bullet journal for the upcoming school year.
Every winter and every summer I struggle with whether or not I should start a new bullet journal. Do I make my bullet journal go by the calendar year? Or do I setup my bullet journal for the academic year? As a teacher, the academic year makes sense. But then January comes around and I get FOMO when I see all the new setups of new bullet journals for the new year. I have to admit, I have set up my bullet journal both ways. I had a blackout book that I started at the beginning of 2022, but I was really feeling the urge to set up a new journal for the upcoming academic school year.
In this blog post, I am going to show you some of the pages and spreads I have set up for my new bullet journal, along with some academic and teacher spreads. I hope that you find some of these pages and spreads useful for your own bullet journal. Let’s get started!
My Bullet Journal.
I fell in love with this Amy Tangerine x Archer & Olive collab bullet journal that was released in the summer of 2022. The Kraft paper was a little out of my comfort zone, but it continues to grow on me as I use the journal.
My Supplies.
As I worked on my spreads that I want to use throughout the year, my teacher spreads, and my TPT business spreads, these are some of the supplies I found myself using most frequently:
Archer & Olive Acrylograph Paint Pens
22-23 Cover Page.
While I do consider myself to be a generally creative and crafty person, I do not consider myself very good at drawing. So I decided to go with a cover page, and general theme on later pages, using colorful organic shapes. I love the way the Archer and Olive Acrylograph paint pens pop on the Kraft paper.
Habit Tracker.
My bullet journals seem to be a place for me to make to-do lists and track habits. DISCIPLINE. That’s my word of the year. I am going to apply discipline to my personal and professional goals, which will be monitored with my habit tracker throughout the year. To keep all my habit trackers in one spot, I utilized a Dutch door spread to keep all months in the same spot. I also used tabs to make the tracker easier to find when I’m flipping through the pages of the bullet journal.
Academic Calendar.
When I need to be able to see events for the academic year all in one location, I look back on this spread. Sure, I can go to my Google Calendar on my phone for any particular month, and I use that often. But sometimes it can be helpful to look at the year at a glance. So I plot out the academic calendar from August to May, and make note of any dates or events of interest.
Pacing Guide.
This is a spread in my teacher bullet journal that I refer back to often during the school year. Before school begins, I look back at my lesson plans from previous years to count out how long each unit takes, on average. Once I have a good idea of the timing, I sketch out that amount of time in the pacing guide in my bullet journal. As I do so, I consider certain days and tentatively plan my units around those days. For example, half days and C days mean shorter class periods, and I avoid placing an assessment (end of unit) on those dates. This pacing guide is tentative. If I find I need more time, I will lengthen a unit. But this is a spread I put in every bullet journal, as I find it helpful to have the approximate amount of time for each unit in one place. Plus, when I lay out a plan for a unit, it is nice to have both the approximate amount of time needed for the unit along with when the A and B days (block schedule) are, all in one spread.
Bell Schedules and Master Schedule.
My school operates on block scheduling. We have A and B Days, with 4 blocks per day, each at about 90 minutes. But we also have half days, designed for PD to be held in the afternoon after the students have left for the day. And we also have C Days, which are days where we see all of our classes, except our Academic Networking Period (like a study hall or academic lab). On C Days, since we see all of our classes, the classes are approximately 50 minutes, give or take. With all of these schedules will come different bell schedules. Not to mention that we have 4 lunch periods each day. So needless to say, I find it helpful to keep all of the bell schedules in one place in case I need to look up bell times for any reason.
On the righthand side, I have the Master Schedule for the science department. We have 17 teachers in the science department…and I am a science department co-chair this year. For a variety of reasons, I might need to know what each teacher is teaching during each block, along with where they are. We have 17 teachers and only 15 science classrooms, so keeping track of where everyone is can be difficult. I like having this spread in my bullet journal so I can look up classes and locations at any given time.
Master Back to School To-Do List.
There is so much to do before and immediately at the start of the school year. As I mentioned previously, I use my bullet journal to track my habits and for to-do lists. As I move from week to week, I add a to-do list for each week. But before school starts, I make one Master To Do List of all the things I need to get accomplished before school starts.
Thanks so much for reading this post. I hope you found it helpful. What kind of spreads do you keep in your teacher journal? Tag me on Instagram (@unbroken_bond) and show me your spreads! Happy Teaching!
Affiliate Links.
Disclaimer-I make a small commission if you use these links to purchase an item at no extra cost to you.
