Not Your Mama’s Syllabus

I’m a big proponent of the Teachers Pay Teachers website. Why?

Reinventing the wheel is silly! There are so many thoughtful resources available for almost any unit or lesson you’re planning on TPT.
There are some REALLY creative teachers out there! Every time I log on, I am blown away by the engaging lessons that I stumble upon. One of my new favorites is The Superhero Teacher. I can’t believe how detailed her resources are and how truly useful they appear to be. I’m planning to buy her journal prompts bundle to implement this year.
I may or may not sell on TPT myself! 🙂

Shameless plug aside, my background before I dove headfirst into the world of teaching was journalism graphics. I love resources that are user-friendly, easy for a teenager to navigate, and (most importantly in my graphic design brain) look good! Let’s be honest: kids are much more likely to read the document (whether it’s a syllabus, worksheet, etc.) if it looks appealing and it doesn’t take them forever to decipher what they’re supposed to get out of it.

One place that I’ve found my niche in this department is creating a variety of syllabi that teachers can download and customize. I’ve got several options available on TPT, although the ones I’m most excited about are the ones I’m adding new this year. A lot of the work I’ve done in the past has been created using Adobe InDesign, which is a graphic design program. In my brain, it’s really easy to use, but I’ve found that teachers who aren’t as familiar with it (or other Adobe programs like Photoshop) find the downloads to be somewhat intimidating.

So! My new endeavor is trying to create syllabus products in Google Drawings. Doing it with this platform makes the documents so much more user friendly, and you can also familiarize yourself with a new program that you can share with your students for free!

Because it is Google, though, the fonts are a bit more limited, meaning there’s not really a way for me to go back and recreate the original syllabi. Those will still be available on TPT, though! I’d just suggest reading the pre-purchase warning so you’re not disappointed in what you’re getting.