A teacher planner is an under rated, but very helpful tool for managing multiple classes, assignments, meetings and any professional development throughout the year. With a quality teacher planner you can stay on top of grades, holidays as well as take essential notes or ideas you need to remember.
While we do suggest you take a look at using an iPad as a notebook, there are still a wide range of advantages to using a physical teacher planner. Let’s get to it.
What to look for in a teacher planner
A teacher planner is more than just a pretty notebook. It’s an affordable tool designed to stay organized through the year. With the right mix of calendars, perforated pages, weekly and monthly spreads, it’s quite surprising how useful the right teacher planner is.
An ideal teacher planner will have a few aspects based on what our teachers here at Teach and GO use and love. From our own practical experience of day to day teaching, here is what we found most useful and essential.
Price and Build Quality
A good teacher planner does not need to be expensive or complicated. While there are some expensive, premium teacher planners on the market. We have found that a lot of the most basic options were excellent to use for two semesters due to their solid build quality and durable paper.
Calendar
Keeping track of public holidays, events, and personal appointments can get burdensome. While you could use an electronic planner, there is something to using a proper teacher planner with a notebook that you can easily take with you and markup with pens and markers.
Weekly and monthly organization
Grading homework and tests is the most time consuming aspect of being a teacher. A quality planner allows you to stay on top of this burdensome work with ease. You’ll want a planner that makes organizing your schedule as well as student work on a week by week basis as well as on a monthly basis.
Custom teacher planners
One size does not fit all. Regardless of what you’re teaching or perhaps even studying, you’ll need a teacher planner that allows you to customize it for your specific academic needs as an online teacher and in class teacher have different needs.
Best Teacher Planners for High School, Elementary and Online
So what are the best teacher planners for high school teachers, elementary teachers as well as teachers who also work online? Here is Teach and GO”s most helpful and essential teacher planners:
- House of Doolittle Teachers
- Erin Codern
- Delux Stylish Planner
- Carson Dellosa
- Bloom Daily Planners
- Elan Hardcover Plan and Record Book
- Pretty Simple Planners
- Inspirational Planner
- Blue Sky Teacher Planner
- Tim Star Planner
- Elan Soft Covers
House of Doolittle Teachers – No Frills Teacher Planner
We loved this simple looking, easy to use teacher planner. Made from recycled paper (because let’s be honest, we teachers use a lot of paper) with a slightly hard cover coming in a variety of colors, this planner is well designed for teachers.
It comes with the first few pages designed to schedule up to four terms in advanced and lot’s of extra space for leaving specific notes and personal reminders. It also provides and adequate amount of weekly planning.
Pros:
- The space, layout and organization you’ll need as a teacher to stay organized and on top of your classes.
Cons:
- No monthly calendar.
Erin Codren – The industry leader in teacher planners
Erin Codren is an excellent brand that makes some outstanding planners for day to day use, monthly planning, travel as well as teacher planners. This particular academic planner is has a great functional layout with a lovely design.
It comes with multiple spreads and layouts as well as tabs to organize by the month. From keeping track of projects and exams, to monthly and weekly requirements, this planner comes with all the details you need including stickers, notes, and inspirational quotes.
Pros:
- Interchangeable covers.
- Excellent overall build quality to last.
- Great organization and layout of information.
Cons:
- Designed with a student in mind and not a teacher. But it’s customizable enough to be used as a teacher planner.
Delux Stylish Planner – The Comprehensive Choice
This academic planner has an artistic cover with the inside being stunningly well organized. Our teachers here at Teach and GO were quite surprised by how comprehensive and packed this unassuming planner actually is.
It contains most of what a modern teacher needs. Including a spot to manage contacts, meetings and professional development. It also comes with a monthly and weekly planner for lessons and activities as well as enough room to take notes.
Last the build quality is great. The cover is water resistant and the actual paper is thick and durable so you can color code things using markers without having to worry about the color spilling through.
Pros:
- An overall great planner with most organizational items a school teacher or online teacher would need to keep track of everything.
- Build quality is excellent.
- Helpful tabs.
Cons:
- The cover is not interchangeable so you’re stuck with one design.
Carson Dellosa Planners – The Elementary Option
This planner is a stylish, spiral bound teacher planner best for any elementary school teacher (or homeschool teacher) who wants to manage both classroom work as well as online teaching responsibilities. It’s good a colorful design with quotes and graphics and helps teachers keep track of their classrooms.
It comes with a monthly and weekly planner to help you remember specific events and meetings. It’s also comes with a section to help you lesson plan and keep records of any conversations.
Pros:
- Design fits well with elementary teachers or homeschool teachers with young students.
- It’s a useful mix of lesson planner, record organizer and monthly work management.
Cons:
- Build quality could be better, it’s equivalent to a notebook with a slightly more durable cover.
Bloom Daily Planners – The premium option
As far as teacher planners go, Bloom produces some of the best around at a higher price point. So what do you get when you buy a simple planner? Quite a bit honestly.
First, Bloom with their hashtag “bloom girl” is a company for women by women. They pride themselves on creating a community of supportive and helpful teachers.
The actual teacher planner has all the attention to detail you should expect. Multiple tabs to organize subjects, a weekly planner as well as a monthly planner to stay on top of field trips, events and meetings. Great build quality and durable paper to last you.
Last, you also get access to the Bloom community of downloadable PDF’s and images.
Pros:
- An excellent alternative to Erin Codren Planners.
- Excellent attention to detail with the design and layout.
Cons:
- Not ideal for male teachers with the whole emphasis on “bloom girl.”
Elan Hardcover Combination Planner – Lessons and Grades
If you’re look for on organizational tool that is outstanding for both lesson planning and record keeping of grades for your students then take a look at this hardcover planner.
While a lot of teachers do prefer to have two books, one as their personal planner and one for grades, if you want a combo option this is one of the best we’ve used.
What we like about this planner is simple. It comes with the right layout and organizational spreads to map multiple classes for weeks 10 weeks or more of learning.
It also as perforated pages to keep track of grades for up to 50 students on one page. Overall, a good weekly planner with grade keeping designed properly.
Pros:
- One of the few combo options we’ve found.
- 36 weeks of recording pages for up to 50 students.
- Grade pages and a daily schedule.
Cons:
- The build quality is lacking. The hard cover is more of that compressed paper style hard cover.
Pretty Simple Planners – The Minimal Option
What we liked about this planner is that it has the right mix of design while at the same time being basic and minimalist, but in the right ways.
Get this planner if you’re specifically looking for a weekly and monthly lesson planner. Of course it comes with a small sidebar section where you can take notes in an unstructured way.
Last, this teacher planner does not have spiral coil. This is fantastic if you want something small that can fit in to a folder, a backpack or a messenger bag. Overall, this is very helpful and handy planner.
Pros:
- Elegant design with a simple layout.
- Great for lesson planning month to month and week to week.
- No coil so it fits into folders or bags with ease.
Cons:
- If you want something with more complex spreads or a way to keep track of grades this is not it.
Inspirational Planner – The Small Option
This planner is quite small and perhaps even “cute” would be an accurate description. It’s your standard teacher planner with all the organizational options you would want except in a smaller size.
Inside you have a beautiful, feminine design with bright colors. Tabs to help you stay organized month by month and solid hardcover that’s quite durable while not making this planner needlessly bulky.
If you’ve been looking for a planner that has durable paper, great organization of lessons and activities on monthly and weekly basis, all in a small size then this is your planner.
Pros:
- Small size that’s easy to take with you.
- Excellent organization of lessons and activities.
- Tabs and quality paper for marking up with markers.
Cons:
- The small size is not for everyone.
- Feminine design that is not appealing to male teachers.
Blue Sky Teacher Planner – The Classic Option
Blue Sky is a pretty well known brand for creating some decent, affordable and durable teacher planners. This planner is no exception. It’s your standard teacher planner with a lot of liberty given to writing notes and keeping track of lesson plans week to week and by month.
Comes with a convenient list of US holidays and a “contacts” page. Last, we loved the simple cover design. Not every teacher want’s a colorful cover so this is a great option if you want something a bit more subdued.
Pros:
- A good layout and spread of the weeks and month.
- Dedicated pages for note taking and your personal contacts.
- Flexible cover with a clean and simple design.
Cons:
- Build quality could be better compared to other options.
Tim Star Planner – The Two Year Choice
This planner is designed for two years. On top of that, it has a cool, sleek design that is perfect for both male and female teachers. We also loved that this planner had no spiral binding the paper.
The build quality on this teacher planner is also quite good and even though it has no spiral binding the paper. It had a durable and tough feel to it overall.
Inside we were quite surprised. It has pages for passwords, contacts, note taking as well as your standard week to week and monthly layout for lessons and activities.
Pros:
- Two years of planning in one book.
- Feature rich with a lot of helpful organizational options.
- Beautiful, classic design.
Cons:
- This is fairly big planner and some may find it bulky.
- No tabs. As it’s for two years this is understandable, but tabs are helpful feature of any teacher planner.
Elan Soft Covers – The teacher planner
While we really like the Elan hardcover planner mentioned earlier, we want to complete this list of the best teacher planners by mentioning Elan’s soft cover planners for teachers.
Theses planers are more ideal if you’re a teacher who just want’s a teacher planner with lot’s of pages and good organization without all the stickers, quotes and motivational mantras found in other planners. The Elan planners come in 3 varieties for the amount of periods you teach at school.
Currently you can get a 6, 7 or 8 period lesson planner. Included in the planner are setting charts, daily planner and note taking, important dates and pages to serve as a grade book.
The Best Teacher Planners Conclusion
While a lot of record keeping, note taking and lesson planning is moving online. There is still something really nice and helpful about a physical book you can edit and customize as you want.
A quality teacher planner is very helpful in staying organized, focused and on top of your week to week activities. Best of all, they are not expensive. Once you have your own process with using a teacher planner, you’ll understand how useful such a simple notebook can be.
