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Teacher planners are the “glue” to keeping the chaos at bay. Every teacher needs a good lesson planner to keep their classroom organized. Without one, it’s nearly impossible to keep everything organized and avoid letting important items fall through the cracks.
The good news is that there are many different styles and choices available to fit every individual teacher’s needs and preferences. The best teacher planners all have similar features that set them apart from the rest. It does make it a bit harder to choose – there are a lot of different products to wade through.
We are here to help cut the list down to save you time. We’ve selected our favorite brands that our teacher panel recommends as their favorite for keeping track of lesson plans. We’ve also included a guide for what features you should insist upon in your planner if you want to go shopping offline.
What Makes A Great Teacher Planner
There isn’t a perfect lesson planner that will satisfy all the requirements of every teacher. However, there are certain elements that a teacher planner should have to consider. We aren’t talking about personal preferences like cover design and color – you’ll have to decide on the colors on your own.
Best Teacher Planners Compared
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Excello Deluxe Undated Teacher Planner |
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Blue Sky Academic Teacher Lesson Planner |
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Teacher Created Resources Home Sweet Classroom Lesson Planner |
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House Of Doolittle Teachers Planner |
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Eureka Blue Harmony Record And Planbook |
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Maalbok Teacher Planner With Quotes Lowest Price |
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Rocketbook Smart Reusable Notebook Most Popular |
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bloom Daily Planners Most Popular |
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Elan 7 Period Teacher Lesson Planners |
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Best Teacher Planners Reviewed
Best Teacher Planner Overall: Excello Deluxe Undated Teacher Planner
The full-color Excello Global Deluxe Undated Teacher Planner is our editor’s choice for the all-around academic planner; the versatile planner has all the organizational options to make a teacher’s life easier. This awesome, life-changing planner features weekly and monthly spreads, nine tabbed sections, five sticker sheets, a pocket folder, and a bookmark.
Dates with this 12-month undated planner don’t restrict teachers; they can start their yearly planning at any time with the undated weekly and monthly spreads. Colorful tabs divide each section for easy identification, and the planning stickers variety pack is helpful for methodical planning. Color-coding subjects, periods, classes, or student activities with blank stickers help a teacher plan their busy schedule. A built-in pocket folder holds loose papers; perfect for keeping those handwritten notes in one place.
The weekly spread has a vertical layout, and there is enough space for seven periods. The 52-week planning pages have the weekdays across and the seven periods down the side. This ideal planner allows teachers with rotating schedules to stay on top of their daily schedule and plan ahead with the undated monthly calendar pages.
The Deluxe Teacher Planner’s elegant design with silver spiral binding and durable cover is made to last. This teacher planner is like a teaching assistant that helps the teacher stay organized. Inside is a teacher lesson planner, a pocket for extra storage, and unique pages. With bright colors, the section tabs separate the undated monthly calendar pages, undated weekly calendar pages, yearly overview plan, student list, communication log, daily schedule charts, a log to record grades, notes, seating chart, and grids.
It is the ideal planner for teachers of all grade levels. Teachers use it as a simple planner or complement the colorful cover by using the tabs and stickers in a variety of colors to organize and plan lessons for the year.
Best Teacher Planners for Organizational Style: Blue Sky Academic Teacher Lesson Planner
The Blue Sky Academic Teacher Planner is the perfect teacher planner to keep a teacher’s professional life, and personal life organized. Designed by a well-known brand for teacher planners, this colorful teacher planner with lots of room for planning and notes is ideal for a high school to an elementary school teacher.
With a 12-month academic planner and dedicated pages for notes and personal contacts, teachers can stay organized. There is more than enough room for planning lessons and keeping up to date with the weekly activity schedule. Celebrate birthdays and holidays with a special page for class birthdays and a list of major holidays.
The teacher lesson planner also features a monthly layout, yearly calendar pages, inspirational quotes, and a glossy clear sleeve cover for favorite pictures. The Blue Sky Academic Teacher Lesson Planner is one of the best organizational tools for teachers, homeschooling parents, and office workers.
Best Teacher Planners For Stickers: Teacher Created Resources Home Sweet Classroom Lesson Planner
One of our favorite teacher planners is the Teacher Created Resources Classroom Lesson Planner, with lots of stickers to make a standard teacher planner pop. It is the ideal teacher planner for any teacher who likes to personalize and have fun with their lesson planning process.
With 340 stickers, a teacher has an arsenal of tools to transform a basic teacher planner into a custom planner that complements their teaching style. The hundreds of stickers include holiday stickers, accent stickers for lesson plans, add-on subject stickers, write-on stickers, to-do list stickers, stickers to highlight important events, and more. Should teachers run out of stickers, they can purchase additional sticker packs for more planning fun.
The teacher lesson planner has room for 40 weeks of lesson plans with extra space for notes on the weekly planner and monthly planner pages. Additional planner features include a seating chart and a substitute teacher information section.
Elementary teachers, middle school, and high school educators will find the Teacher Created Resources Planner helpful; you don’t have to be a student to have fun with stickers. The lesson plan book helps teachers plan daily lesson plans, and being creative with stickers may stimulate new ideas.
Best Teacher Planners For Simplicity: House Of Doolittle Teachers Planner
The House Of Doolittle Teachers Planner is a great planner; the vertical and horizontal layout has all the basic options a modern teacher needs for lesson planning. The simple layout is the perfect tool for teachers who prefer a basic lesson plan book.
A 2-page lesson plan for weekly planning pages provides space for seven periods per week. A teacher can plan their year with the 40 weeks planner. Although a basic planner, it does feature dedicated pages that is helpful to teachers. The extras include a seating chart, student attendance record sheet, blank pages for notes, and a general information page including the teacher’s name, grade they teach, phone number, and email address.
The lightweight planner for teachers is made from eco-friendly 100% recycled and certified paper. The thinner paper weighs 3.2 ounces which is compact and light to carry compared to other planners. Teachers have two cover choices, pink or blue; the bright cover is easily seen when searching for it in a tote or teacher’s desk.
Best Teacher Planners For Grade Sheets: Eureka Blue Harmony Record And Planbook
The Eureka Blue Harmony Record Planbook is one of the best planners for teachers to stay organized. Unlike other planners, the all-in-one planner combines the teacher lesson planner with grading sheets.
Teachers who prefer a paper planner to a digital planner will appreciate the beautiful 14 cover designs; with so many choices, a teacher can have a new teacher planner for every year. The teacher’s planner includes pages for 40 weeks of lesson planning. The undated planner for teachers features dual pages for each week’s lesson plans. The paper planner is suitable for all grade levels with seven subject boxes. Homeschooling parents and tutors can allocate subject boxes for each student.
The teacher lesson planner has pages dedicated to specific items: attendance student checklist pages, note pages, planning pages, emergency plans, lesson information for substitute teachers, personal info page, and important dates like student birthday dates and school holidays.
The spiral-bound planner with a grades book is an excellent gift for any teacher. A teacher can choose the cover design relevant to the grade they teach. Undated, the academic planner is ideal for any academic year, and the spiral binding for convenience is easy to use.
Best Teacher Planners For Budget: Maalbok Teacher Planner With Quotes
The Maalbok Teacher Planner is the best value teacher lesson planner. The stylish teacher’s planner features everything a teacher needs in a lesson plan book to schedule and plan lessons, including extra dedicated pages.
Monthly calendar pages are spread across two pages with holiday reminders, a note section for tasks and big ideas, inspirational quotes to motivate, and 3-month calendar references to keep track of life. Weekly planning pages have ample writing space for planning lessons and scheduling weekly activities. The day of the week, date of the month and week of the month help teachers plan and organize all the information needed for each week and month. The 9-column vertical layout features special subjects and time-sheets to record classes and dates effortlessly. With a 53-week calendar, teachers can plan the year ahead and into the following year.
The teacher lesson planner contains dedicated pages, including a yearly overview, class birthdays and special dates page, holiday pages up to two years ahead, weekly activities and schedule pages, and a quick reference information page.
The durable planner feature one of the most unique and refreshing cover designs; the stylish cover has rounded corners and is soft and flexible for ease of use. Spiral bound with strong twin-wire binding makes the planner durable to handle multiple opening and closing daily. The thick paper won’t tear easily from consistent usage, and the monthly printed tabs help find the month quickly. The budget teacher planner is perfect for teachers of all grades offering great value at an affordable price, an excellent gift to teachers who prefer an actual paper planner to a digital planner.
Best Teacher Planners For Modern Teachers: Rocketbook Smart Reusable Notebook
The Rocketbook Smart Reusable Notebook is the best planner for teachers who can’t decide between a paper planner or a digital planner. It’s the best of both worlds; teachers write in the notebook as a paper planer, but the content is saved digitally, readily available on smart devices.
With dedicated symbols on the free Rocketbook app for iOs or Android, teachers can choose where to store their handwritten notes, checklist pages, and images. The seven options are Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, OneNote, iCloud, Slack, or email. Draw the dedicated symbol on the page to beam the content to the dedicated cloud service.
The 32-page dotted grid notebook is reusable; wipe the space-aged pages clean with the included cloth to write or draw again. Before wiping the page, scan the page with your smartphone. Allow about 15 seconds for the ink of the Pilot FriXion pen, highlighter, or marker to dry and bond with the specialized pages.
If you tend to write on anything handy, even your device screen, or lose handwritten notes, then this digital notebook planner is an excellent solution for you. The package includes the Rocketbook notebook, a Pilot FriXion pen, and the microfiber cloth.
Best Teacher Planners For Any School Season: bloom Daily Planners
bloom Planners might not be as well known as Erin Condren, but we have a few Friends of Fractus that encouraged us to include them in our roundup.
These educators use them and love them! The teacher planner ticks off all the boxes – they have both monthly and weekly calendars. There are section tabs to find what you are looking for quickly easily. You’ll also find pockets and extra note pages to keep track of reminders, ideas – whatever you need!
Most of these teacher planners only include 7 lesson blocks per day, which is fine for many classrooms. If customization isn’t a huge issue for you, check out the styles available. It could be the best teacher planner to help you stay organized.
Best Teacher Planners For Multi-Periods: Elan 7 Period Teacher Lesson Planners
If you are just looking for a paper planner – so you don’t need a grade or attendance book included – this inexpensive choice may be exactly what you are looking for. The Elan Lesson Planner has many of the features you’d expect from one of the best planners for teachers.
The Elan Lesson Planner comes in a preprinted academic year format. That’s nice because it’s less work for you to set it up. You can get them in 6, 7, or 8-period formats. They all include weekly pages format – the week stretches across two pages. We link to the 7-period one because it’s the one our advisers used, and it also comes with a convenient pocket.
We have heard in the past there were some issues with quality control, but the company was quick to stand behind their product and respond accordingly. At this price point, custom service isn’t always a given. If you just want to create your lesson plan and not worry about anything else, Elan might be the teacher binder for you.
Best Teacher Planner For Variety: Erin Condren Teacher Lesson Planners
The Erin Condren Teacher Planner, with its artistic cover, is the ideal planner to organize a teacher’s day for the entire school year. Erin Condren is well known among educators, so it should be no surprise we are recommending their planners. You get the best of both worlds – a sturdy planner strong enough to handle the day-to-day abuse all planners for teachers can get, along with enough customization options to make it your very own.
This ultimate teacher planner has extra features to help teachers stay organized. These additional pages include an All-about-me information page, communication logs, note pages, checklist pages for attendance logs or assignments, monthly productivity pages, mini month calendar days, inspirational quotes, four sticker sheets, and a sheet protector.
The wet-erase-compatible laminate cover is perfect for jotting something you don’t want to forget, like phone numbers; a better option than tying a knot on your finger or writing on your hand instead of paper.
There are nearly 100 styles to choose from, so you should find one to fit your personality or color taste. If you tire of your cover, don’t fret – you can remove the interchangeable cover and choose another. Way cool!
Erin Condren teacher planners come in the school year and full-year styles with undated or preprinted dates. There are also choices based on lesson blocks, extra pages to keep track of ALL the thoughts you need to during the day, seating charts, student achievement, graph paper, communication logs – I could go on and on, but you need to see it for yourself. You can’t go wrong with an Erin Condren planner; check out their abundant options here.
Which of these teacher planners is right for you? Are there specific features you insist an academic planner should include?
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