No two classrooms are alike, and neither are our teaching styles or organizational needs! That’s why having a custom teacher planner is like having a personal assistant by your side helping you navigate through lesson plans, parent communication, grading, and student data. In this blog post, we’ll explore how you can create the perfect custom teacher planner for your teaching journey!
Classroom Forms are the Foundation
Every great custom teacher planner starts with the essential classroom forms. These forms lay the groundwork for effective time management, communication, and organization of all the things!
Here are some common classroom forms you’ll find in custom teacher planners:
Student Information Sheets: gather and store vital details about your students, like contact information, allergies and health concerns, and special needs to ensure you can find the information at a glance.
Lesson Planning Templates: editable templates that align with your teaching style and curriculum standards. Whether you prefer weekly, daily or thematic planning, having a structured format will streamline your lesson planning.
Classroom Calendars: incorporate monthly calendars to keep track of important dates, holidays, and important events (like winter and spring break!). I refer to my calendar templates SO often. I like the two page spread calendar so I have more room to write, or for fun stickers!
Small Group Planning Sheets: Elementary teachers unite! These planning sheets are perfect for differentiated instruction and mapping out those small group activities. These sheets help me to plan specific student needs and take anecdotal notes to monitor student progress. (So helpful for parent teacher conferences and IEP meetings)
Parent Contact Logs: Let’s get serious for a minute. Communication with parents and guardians is SO important for student success. These editable templates include a things that I’ve found helpful to document from the conversation. That way if and when difficult conversations come up later, I can look back through my parent contact logs to find our discussions.
Grade Book Sheets: Keep track of student grades and progress with these traditional grade book sheets!
To Do Lists: Stay on top of daily or weekly tasks and deadlines by using these to do lists in your custom teacher planner. Five templates are included so you can choose which format works best for you. Remember to celebrate as you check those jobs off your list!
Year at a Glance: Get an overview of the whole school year with these classroom forms. These allow me to plan ahead for units, major events, assessments, and those big curriculum milestones.
Custom Teacher Planner Covers
This is my favorite part. If you know me, you know I love a good classroom decor theme! Making everything match brings a huge smile to my face. Read more about choosing the best classroom theme.
I use the custom teacher planner cover pages as divider pages between the sections in my binder. Each set has SO MANY styles to choose from you’re sure to find one that screams, “Pick me!”
Bringing It All Together
Creating a custom teacher planner helps me to be the best teacher I can be by keeping me organized and on track. I love having my classroom forms, lesson plans, to do lists, and parent contact logs all in one easy to find place.
Remember that you can experiment with different classroom forms and sections in your custom teacher planner. Don’t be afraid to make adjustments throughout the school year to find what works best for you.
Each year my teacher planner looks a little different because I’m growing and changing as an educator, and yours will too! But I cant imagine teaching without my custom teacher planner!
Read more about printing out your own teacher planner sheets and classroom decor here.
