Teacher Planners at Their Best
A new teacher planner is so much more than just a book! It is hope and possibility for the future. The crisp, fresh, blank pages are our new start to a new year. A well-structured planner will help you organize your lesson plans so that you carry forward the best from the past and blend it with your new ideas for the future.
Layouts
Teacher planners are arranged in a few different ways. Some focus on individual classes, so they have large spaces for each day that are broken into 6-8 classes. Other planners focus more heavily on long-term plans. They are set up to show a week or even a month worth of plans at a glance. While this has some big advantages, it does mean that there is often less space to write in each day.
Ultimately, the style of planner you choose will depend on your preferences and circumstances. If you have 4 different preps, you may prefer a planner that focuses more heavily on individual classes. If you are a special education teacher, you may want a planner that focuses on the long-term so that you can more easily see important dates throughout the school year.
Features
Most teacher planners will come with features like stickers, note section, or address book sections. Some even have grade book spaces for teachers who prefer to keep a paper copy of their grades. The features that are most useful will depend on the purpose of the planner.
Most teachers jot down lesson plans in the planning blocks for each day and class. IEP, faculty, and department meetings can also be easily recorded to keep track of those dates in good planners for teachers. The best planners for teachers will have the features that each individual teacher needs to plan the teacher lesson, keep track of important dates, and have ample lesson planner space to write all of the thoughts and ideas a teacher has throughout the year.
The Best Teacher Planners
While the best teacher planner is ultimately the one that works best for you, here are some great options that commonly help a teacher stay organized.
1. Erin Condren 12-month Teacher Planner
For a teacher who uses their planner as much more than just a lesson planner, the Erin Condren 12-month Teacher Planner is a great option. It has great features, including a full line-up of holiday stickers. The Erin Condren planner also includes some organizational bonuses, like a 2 pocket folder and extra graph and note pages. It can be very nice to have a planner that runs for the full 12 months, rather than just the academic year. That said, it’s important to note that the Erin Condren planner does run January to December.
At just under $40, it offers some of the extras that really make it worth the price. There is a sheet protector and the number of pages is great enough to allow you to plan in whatever way works for you. There are month pages in addition to week pages, to give you flexibility in how you set up your teacher lesson plans in the Erin Condren planner. This planner also has great quotes throughout the planner in addition to the beautiful cover design and thoughtful layout.
2. Carson Dellosa Aim High Teacher Planner
This planner offers space to plan for 5 classes each day while viewing a week at a time. One of the best features of the Carson Dellosa Aim High Teacher Planner is the communication log page that will make it easy to keep track of conversations with parents right in the planner. It is a spiral-bound planner with a hard cover that should survive the school year well.
For elementary teachers, this layout and design can be one of the best teacher planners to keep them organized. It has a beautiful design and great quotes to keep you inspired, even when you are trying to write great teacher lesson plans at the end of a really challenging day.
3. Blue Sky Academic Year Teachers Monthly Lesson Planner
For those teachers who prefer a soft cover but still want a decorative design, the Blue Sky Academic Year Teachers Monthly Lesson Planner may be a perfect choice. One of the most notable aspects of this planner is the layout that lists the days of the week vertically down the side of the page with spaces across for different classes. It still has a spiral design and the cover has a protective plastic to keep it nice and protected even when it gets shoved into your teacher bag day after day.
This lesson planner will help teacher lesson plans flow from day to day and week to week for those teachers who find it best to see the days of the week along the side of the page. It is one of the best teacher planners for those who like to build their lessons as the week moves onward. That progression is easy to see in a planner that stacks the days of the week on top of one another.
4. Bloom Undated Academic Year Teacher Planner
This spiral-bound planner has a beautiful cover and plenty of pages with tabs to make it easy to find what you are looking for. The Bloom Undated Teacher Planner is a 12-month planner, but it does not have dates pre-written. This will give teachers great flexibility to use it how and when they see fit. It does have the days of the week across the top of the page with space for classes going down the side. This planner includes a communication log along with grade book pages for those who prefer to keep paper records.
5. Elan Planners
Soft Cover
1. 6-period lesson planner
Elan publishes some of the simplest, but often the best teacher planners available. They have a 6-period lesson planner, a 7-period lesson planner, and an 8-period lesson planner. Each of the books is wire-bound and has soft flexible covers. They are a simple solid color and do not have fancy features like stickers and inspirational quotes. What they do have is plenty of pages for teachers to plan along with grade book pages, seating chart pages, and a great balance of large space for daily teacher lesson plans along with a weekly and monthly view to record important dates. Elan planners have everything teachers expect to find in the best teacher planners but in a simple form.
2. 7-period lesson planner
Elan publishes some of the simplest, but often the best teacher planners available. They have a 6-period lesson planner, a 7-period lesson planner, and an 8-period lesson planner. Each of the books is wire-bound and has soft flexible covers. They are a simple solid color and do not have fancy features like stickers and inspirational quotes. What they do have is plenty of pages for teachers to plan along with grade book pages, seating chart pages, and a great balance of large space for daily teacher lesson plans along with a weekly and monthly view to record important dates. Elan planners have everything teachers expect to find in the best teacher planners but in a simple form.
3. 8-period lesson planner
Elan publishes some of the simplest, but often the best teacher planners available. They have a 6-period lesson planner, a 7-period lesson planner, and an 8-period lesson planner. Each of the books is wire-bound and has soft flexible covers. They are a simple solid color and do not have fancy features like stickers and inspirational quotes. What they do have is plenty of pages for teachers to plan along with grade book pages, seating chart pages, and a great balance of large space for daily teacher lesson plans along with a weekly and monthly view to record important dates. Elan planners have everything teachers expect to find in the best teacher planners but in a simple form.
Hard Cover
For teachers who prefer a planner that has a hard cover to better protect their lesson planner, Elan offers their same teacher lesson plan book with a hard cover. The hard cover design is also more colorful than the simple soft cover and it has a clip-in page marker to make it easy to find your spot. It still has 40 pages for teacher lesson plans and all of the grading sheets and seating chart pages that the best teacher will expect to find in a great lesson planner.
6. Hello Sunshine Teacher Planner
There is no better way to start the day than a great reminder to “Wake Up, Teach Kids, Be Awesome.” That quote is exactly what you will see when you pull out the Hello Sunshine Teacher Planner. It has 128 pages and comes with some great stickers to give you the freedom to mark dates and decorate the pages that matter to you. This lesson planner has both monthly and weekly planning sections along with checklists for the teacher who loves to jot down their to-do list and check off each item as they go.
7. Simply Stylish Teacher Planner
The Simply Stylish Teacher Planner comes with checklists, stickers, tab stickers, and communication logs in addition to the monthly and weekly lesson planner for teacher lesson plans. With 128 pages, you won’t have to worry about turning pages only to find that the book is empty. Teachers will enjoy this lesson planner as the pages are designed to make teacher lesson planning easier to organize than ever before.
8. Blue Floral Lesson Planner
The Blue Floral Lesson Planner is a soft cover model suitable for the entire academic year. It serves as a lesson and general planner and features space for seven different periods for a full 52 weeks. The horizontal layout makes it easy to keep track of information, and there are ‘Important Date’ pages so you can note days of special significance – such as school holidays or students’ birthdays. Plus, there is even a student checklist so you can keep track of the work of individuals. Each week starts on a Monday, and each of the 12 months begins on a Sunday so you can more accurately plan the weeks of the school year.
Conclusion
As every teacher knows, a good teacher lesson planner is more than just a place to write down lessons. Its pages contain our hopes and goals for the future. It is where we record our successes and reflect on our failures to improve for next year. Keeping a paper lesson planner is an easy way to ensure that those thoughts are easy to find as we move from year to year. Whatever your lesson planner style, there’s sure to be a planner that is just right for you.