Archive for the 'Yearbook Ladders' Category

Considerations for Yearbook Ladder Planning

Friday, July 11th, 2008

When you are putting together your yearbook ladder for the year, it can become a bit overwhelming at times. There are a lot of pages in a yearbook and trying to sort them out can be confusing. To make sure you keep everything under control and organized, we`ve compiled some tips on yearbook ladders.

  • Use sticky notes. These can help you set up the order of the pages. Just write the major events and layouts on as many sticky notes as you feel are needed and then stick them to the wall, rearranging until you are satisfied.
  • Get help. Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes can really help, so enlist the help of a fellow teacher or a student and you`ll find the whole process goes a lot faster.
  • Laminate your yearbook ladder. Once you have worked everything out and have a successful yearbook ladder, laminating it can really help the ladder make it through the year. Chances are you`ll be looking at it a lot and the wear can be a little much for plain paper.

Yearbook ladders are a great way to ensure that you are on track throughout the year. If you also want to make sure that your yearbook ladder planning is quick and easy, the tips above will definitely help.

Yearbook Ladders Can Be a Group Effort

Monday, June 16th, 2008

While you may feel that it is faster for you to just do the yearbook ladder yourself, there are a lot of benefits to having the students help with this project. They will usually be more than willing and quite excited to have a part in this important process. Your yearbook ladder may even be better organized with everyone involved.

When getting students to help with yearbook ladders, it´s a good idea to keep the process quite contained so you know exactly what is going on and can quell any squabbles that start up. Another option is to simply have students work on individual sections of the yearbook in small groups. You decide the order of the sections and they do the page by page planning.

Having your students participate in the formation of the yearbook ladder is also a good lesson in organization for them. You`ll find that they respect the space limitations better when they are the ones who made them. It is also a good way to show them exactly how much work goes into this part of the yearbook planning.

Yearbook ladders are a great tool to help keep the yearbook in order and to help you stay on track. Getting the students involved can only help!

Yearbook Ladders for Beginners

Saturday, June 7th, 2008

Even if you´ve never done a yearbook ladder before, it´s quite simple to get started, though rather time consuming. It can be quite useful to have a yearbook ladder, it will allow you to stay more organized throughout the year, which is always a good thing!

Yearbook ladders are a fairly simple concept. You just need to decide what each page of the yearbook will have on it ahead of time and write it down. Often it is useful to post this on the wall of the yearbook classroom so your students can also see how things should go.

For example:
Pages 1-2 - Intro
Page 3 - Word from the principal
Page 4 - Collage “School Daze”

And so on until you have the entire yearbook worked out.

Having a yearbook ladder will make it that much easier to plan each section of the yearbook. You´ll know ahead of time what should be where and just how much space you actually have for each event. It also makes assignments a lot easier, since you´ll know just what you´re asking of each student.

Yearbook ladders are a worthwhile thing to have in your classroom. This is a tool that you will use throughout the year to stay organized.

Yearbook Ladder: Discovering Your Staff Talents

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

The staff you have on your yearbook team will determine how well the yearbook turns out. It´s usually a good idea to have a yearbook ladder to help organize all assignments and make sure that everyone knows just what is coming. But if you are just coming into a school or starting with all new student, how do you know what their talents are?

Ask. While many people are fairly modest about their talents, this is the perfect time to encourage your students to come clean about their talents. Are they good at writing? Photography?

Use a survey. Have students rate their abilities in various areas that relate to the yearbook. They should rate between 1-5, with one being “know nothing about” and five being “expert”. You can include any ability you feel would be useful.

Talk to teachers. Language arts teachers will be able to point out which of your students is really good at journalism or writing, while the photography teacher can let you know who is the best with a camera.

Test them. Do a sample page for the yearbook and let students practice. You´ll quickly see who is good at what areas and they will naturally seek out what they enjoy most.

Yearbook ladders will help you organize all this information. You´ll need to know where the student talents lie in order to create the best possible yearbook. Using students to the best of their ability will help them grow and get more practical experience, too.

Yearbook Ladders and Organizations Go Hand In Hand

Monday, April 28th, 2008

Yearbook ladders are really a great help to keep you organized. If you haven´t already, you might want to check out the advantages of setting up a yearbook ladder. It´s often quite advantageous to have your ladder done early on or even before the school year actually starts, so you will be free to focus on other things.

  • You can assign according to page layouts
  • See at a glance what has been done and what needs to be done
  • Easily check for upcoming events to be photographed
  • Have proof of how much you´ve accomplished

The advantages to having a yearbook ladder are many, but it really does help to have it all done up ahead of time, at least as much as possible. This will let you brainstorm with the students more and come up with better themes rather than stressing about the organizational factor of it all!

Your yearbook ladder could easily be set up the year before, since you will mostly be able to copy the information from one to the other. Just fill in any pertinent details once the new school year begins to update your yearbook ladder.

Yearbook Ladders: Think Ahead and Be More Efficient

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

Yearbook ladders force you to be more efficient by planning everything out ahead of time. With a yearbook ladder, you know just what will go on which page of the yearbook at the beginning of the year.

The yearbook ladder also makes it easier for you to plan your assignments and make sure that the work is evenly split between all the staff. It´s something that you can really use to keep your entire yearbook staff disciplined and organized.

By doing up your yearbook ladder before the school year actually starts, whether during the summer or at the end of the previous year, planning ahead can have some great benefits. You´ll be less stressed out when your students walk into the classroom and you will be able to share with them your enthusiasm for the yearbook, rather than trying to figure out what should be done.

Yearbook Ladders: 5 Reasons to Use One

Thursday, March 27th, 2008

Yearbook ladders are a very important part of keeping the yearbook on track and organized. However, if you aren´t really sure if you want to use a yearbook ladder, here are a few reasons to go with it.

  • Stay organized. With a yearbook ladder, it´s easy to see at a glance where you are and where you should be.
  • Easy assignments. You can write yearbook assignments right on the ladder, so your students never have an excuse for forgetting an assignment.
  • Preplanning. With a yearbook ladder, you´ll have everything planned out from the beginning of the year, which make working a lot easier!

Yearbook ladders are extremely useful and you should most certainly be using them. With a yearbook ladder you will have far more success and find that you make deadlines easier. Your entire staff will be more relaxed because they have their deadlines right on the wall and it is easy to see everything that is coming up and also the progress done.

Yearbook Ladders: Reusable Ladders

Saturday, March 15th, 2008

Many yearbook ladders are very similar from one year to the next. You have to cover the same events and happenings at the school . . . so why not make a yearbook ladder that your students can use year after year?

This is really quite simple. You just need to do your yearbook ladder like you normally would, before the school year starts. Leave plenty of space to the right of the ladder and then have the whole thing laminated. This will make it resistant to most stains and splashes as well as general wear and tear that tends to happen, even to things that are hung on the wall. A hole punched at the top will make it very easy to hang your reusable yearbook ladder on the wall.

To assign students to a specific area of the yearbook ladder, all you need to do is mark their names in dry erase marker beside their assigned category. Draw a line through each item as it is finished and you can easily keep track of how far your yearbook is progressing. The extra space beside it is perfect for any notes you need to make, always with a dry erase marker.

At the end of the year, just use a simple eraser for a white board to remove the extra writing, wash it down with soapy water and you´re good to go for the next year! Just write the new names on the yearbook ladder and make any new notes. As long as your basic yearbook format stays the same, you can keep using the same yearbook ladder.

Yearbook Ladders: Color Coding Makes Assignments Easy

Saturday, March 8th, 2008

Yearbook ladders are a very important part of yearbook organization, but they can get confusing in a real hurry. It works best if you assign each yearbook staff member a certain area to cover. Some of the more important events can have three or more yearbook staff members assigned, but it is a good idea to make sure that everyone know exactly what their duties are.

A great way to ensure that all yearbook staff members are aware of their assignments is to simply color code everything. This works particularly well with smaller classes. With larger ones you may want to assign colors to pairs of students who work well together. Then have everyone team up for assignments.

Your yearbook ladder can be color coded very easily. At the beginning of the year, go ahead and assign each student a color that corresponds to a color on the yearbook ladder. All you really need to do is place a colored dot, or dots, beside each page layout. Then your students can see at a glance what they need to cover and turn in.

Using color coding on your yearbook ladder can be a great way to organize your year and your staff. It helps keep everyone on track and if you continue the color coding system to file folders, etc. you can easily keep tabs on who has turned in their assignments and who hasn´t. Color coding your yearbook ladder is a great method of organization.

Organize Your Yearbook Ladder

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

The yearbook ladder is the organizational cornerstone for the yearbook. Here, you have every page of the yearbook mapped out and prepared. Ideally, the yearbook ladder should be prepared before the first students arrive, even if just the basic outline. Your yearbook staff can help fill in design details later on.

There are three ways to organize the yearbook ladder:

Chronological
Pages are ordered by date on the yearbook ladder. Each event or game to be covered is placed under the right week or month. In this way, the chronological yearbook ladder is much like a well-planned calendar. This is a good method to keep you on track time-wise.

Sectional
Sectional yearbook ladders are organized under the sections that will eventually be in the yearbook, Student Life, Sports, etc. This method allows you to see at a glance how far you´ve gotten in each area of the yearbook. The sectional method is probably the most commonly used. If you really want to get organized, use the sectional method of ordering your yearbook ladder, then under each section, organize pages chronologically.

Seasonal
Seasonal yearbook ladders are very similar to the chronological method, but the yearbook pages are ordered under seasons. The only advantage to this system is that you have entire seasons covered. Very few schools use it, but you may prefer to have things divided up by winter, spring and fall.

Choosing your organizational method is just the first step in organizing your yearbook ladder. Stay tuned for more great tips on this topic in the near future.