Tabular vs fbox (or other options?) for creating an organized document

Question

I'm currently in the process of trying to make a template that I can use for creating lesson plans for my high school math classes, but am having some trouble figuring out how I can make this be the most efficient. Ideally, this document will be something that I can just open up and add information to without having to worry about adjusting spacing; I just want to be able to type things in. In terms of structure, I am shooting for something that looks vaguely similar to this lesson plan.

So far, my code is:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{multicol, fancyhdr}
\usepackage[margin=.5in]{geometry}
\usepackage[mmddyyyy]{datetime}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}

...  

\begin{document}
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{|p{7cm}p{11cm}|}
\hline
\large{Unit: (Put your unit here)} \cellcolor{lightgray} & \large{Lesson: (Put your lesson here)} \cellcolor{lightgray} \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\begin{tabular}{|p{7cm}|p{11cm}|}
\hline 
{\bfseries Date:} \emph{\today} & \bfseries{Standards:} \\
 & \\
\bfseries{Text Used:} & $\bullet$ This would be standard one. \\
\emph{Example book} &  \\
 & $\bullet$ This would be standard two. \\
\bfseries{Materials:} &  \\
\emph{Sample materials written out} & $\bullet$ This would be standard three. \\
 & \\
\cline{2-2}
\bfseries{Accommodations:} & \bfseries{Key Terms:} \\
Some sort of list of accommodations that students may need... &  \\
 & \\
{\bfseries Time:} 45 Minutes & \\
\hline
\end{tabular} \\[.4in]

\begin{tabular}{|p{9cm}|p{9cm}|}
\hline
\multicolumn{2}{|c|}{\large{Continuity} \cellcolor{lightgray}} \\
\hline
\bfseries{Previous Lesson:} & \bfseries{Next Lesson:} \\
 & \\
This is where stuff will go about the previous lesson. & This is where stuff will go about the next lesson. \\[1in]
\hline
\end{tabular}\\[.4in]

\begin{tabular}{|p{9cm}|p{9cm}|}
\hline
\bfseries{Objectives:} & \bfseries{Key Questions:} \\
 & \\
$\bullet$ Objective one could be written right here. Or here. & $\bullet$ \\
 & \\
$\bullet$ This would be the second objective of the lesson. & $\bullet$ \\
 & \\
$\bullet$ Did someone say a third objective? & $\bullet$ \\
\hline
\end{tabular}

\end{center}
\end{document}

Which creates output like:

The problem I'm running into is that I'm pretty sure that in the long-term, tabular isn't the best way to do this (since if one of my columns ends up taking up multiple lines, it'll affect the spacing of the rows in the other column, best seen in my "Key Questions" section). But when I tooled around with fbox, things seemed a little off too. I essentially am trying to stitch together a bunch of different text boxes, that are related to one another (similar sizes, sharing edges, etc), but ultimately independent from each other (so my text in one doesn't affect the other). I don't know how to do this.

Answer 1

So after toying around with this for a bit, and looking up some information about columns and boxes, I decided that this was the best route to go. What columns and boxes seemed to provide was a way to have side-by-side information that wouldn't influence spacing of boxes/columns around it.

I decided to use the paracol package to create code like:

    \begin{center}
    \begin{paracol}{2}
    \framebox{\parbox{9cm}{

    {\bfseries Date:} \\ % DATE - when will you be giving this lesson? 

    {\bfseries Text Used:} \\ % TEXT USED - what book/text did you use to make this lesson plan?

    {\bfseries Materials:} \\ % MATERIALS - any special resources you need?

    {\bfseries Accommodations:} \\ % ACCOMMODATIONS

    {\bfseries Time:} \\ % TIME - how long will your lesson need?
    }} \\[.4in]

    \switchcolumn
    \framebox{\parbox{9cm}{
    {\bfseries Standards:} \\

    {\bfseries Key Terms:} \\
    }}
    \end{paracol}

Which gave me output that looks like: Now, when I only needed one column, I went ahead and still used tables (since the issue I was having was never coming from single-column tables), but when I wanted tables with multiple columns, I switched to using framed parboxes in a two column environment.

And while the fact that the tables don't match up perfectly in size, as I put information in them, my guess is they'll begin to become closer to matching (and if they don't, that's something I can very easily control, if it's bothering me that much!).

I should also add the one exception I made was for the "Continuity" section, since in this table I won't be using environments like itemize, so I was less worried about spacing. Plus, what I enter in for past and next lessons should be pretty similar in terms of length, so again, spacing was less of a concern here.