Whenever I browse other blogs (not piano related) I love to look at paper “eye candy”. Like the following:

PlannerCollage

(Sources: The Handmade Home, Elle & Co., and IHeart Organizing. Aren’t they fabulous planners?!)

The other morning, my moment of inspiration struck – I needed a better way to keep up with student notes than a plain notepad by my piano so why couldn’t I have something cute and meant for lesson notes?? I’ve tried calendars but on the days I teach I need way more room and then it’s hard to organize just how I’d like since these books are generic and not specifically meant for a teacher seeing 8 or more students in a few hours… I know there are several online ways to keep track of notes and even send them to parents sometimes but I love my pen & paper, especially for those few seconds I have as the students walk out and a new one walks in.

Thus today’s post – I’m sharing new lesson planning pages that I love to print out and keep in a binder right at the piano. As I try to make them cute yet super useful, so I’m sure they’ll be going through several more edits.  A must for me was being able to write the student’s name at the top of each page that has their notes and then date each section as I fill it in. Also to easily be able to pull out pages with TO-DO notes, then insert them right back where they go when I’m done. I know everyone’s schedules are a bit different so I’ve tried to keep these simple – so you could print more or less for different students. I hope you find these helpful to you in keeping your teaching more organized and stylish!

LessonNotes1What other pages would you like to see to fit this design? My next ideas include: quote pages to inspire me, a list of birthdays, a place to quickly log payments for festivals,… so many ideas! These are black and white so printing is easy but with the cheap color printing (with MTNA card) at Office Depot I may be branching out to color designs for myself soon too.

Download: LessonNotes1 and LessonNotes2

Also, I cannot find the original source but I have this quote in my binder right now – I love the reminder that I’m lucky to get to do what I do! Quote1

 

 

Author: Whitney

Whitney Hawker, NCTM, teaches group and private piano at Weber State University, Utah. She loves surprising students with the perfect piece or a new exciting game! After graduate school, she missed sharing ideas and resources daily with colleagues so she and her friend, Spring, began blogging together at 4DPianoTeaching.com