If you use a paper teacher planner and want to switch to a digital teacher planner, read on to find a lesson plan book that’s right for you.
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Are you a teacher who uses a paper planner? Perhaps you’re looking for a way to switch to a digital teacher planner. If so, how can you be sure which type of lesson plan book is right for you?
I’ve used both digital and paper planners. Hands down, I’d choose digital over paper because it has so many advantages. Once I moved to the digital side, I never went back to paper.
Why Choose a Digital Teacher Planner?
One of the biggest perks is you never need to purchase a planner again. Gone are the days of shopping for a paper planner each summer. In this planner, you have perpetual calendar pages, so you can update them each year with just one click.
Better yet, you can download a new copy each year from wherever you purchased your planner.
Customize your planner with the pages and features you want, and get rid of the rest. If you change your mind later, no worries! You can download it again…for free.
Unlike some other planners, you don’t have to pay to join a membership to get all the pieces. With this teacher plan book in Sheets, you buy it once and it’s yours forever…along with all of the updates based on your feedback.
I’m so grateful to the teachers who beta-tested this new planner. Their feedback helped me create a teacher plan book that gives you what you want. The only thing it doesn’t do is plan your lessons for you.
I want this planner to be your new favorite planner. Just let me know what features you want and I’ll do my best to make them happen. Together, we can create the perfect planner for you.
Key Features of a Good Lesson Plan Book
The main advantage of a digital teacher planner is you can access it anywhere. It makes planning as convenient, easy and seamless as it can possibly be.
However, sometimes you want a printed page. Perhaps you need it for a substitute teacher, or for an observation, or for a team meeting. You can print these pages and keep them in a notebook if that’s what you prefer.
Customizing your planner is key. No two teachers have the same schedule or the same way of teaching. Having a digital planner allows you to customize the style so that it works for you.
Now let’s dive into some of the features.
The Teacher Planner Dashboard
The dashboard sheet is your control panel for all the things in the planner. From there you can quickly jump to any sheet you need. No more scrolling through pages to find the class list or the year-at-a-glance. It’s all there for you in just one click.
Each of the pages also include a link back to the teacher dashboard.
The Perpetual Calendar in the Teacher Lesson Plan Book
One terrific feature is the perpetual calendar. In case you’ve never heard of a perpetual calendar before, it’s a calendar in Sheets or Excel that you can update just by changing the year.
Let’s say you’re planning the fall carnival for October 2024. Someone asks what days of the week it will be in October 2025. All you need to do is click on the year, change it to 2025, and the calendar will update to that date for you.
Let’s say you’re planning a fraction unit you always teach in November. You decide you want to put the plans in place for next year, too. (Now that’s thinking ahead and a great planning strategy, friend!)
All you need to do is copy the calendar, and change the year. Now you have two perpetual calendars, so you can copy your plans into next year. You’re ready to go! No need to look for those plans again, or for the materials you used…because you linked to the files right in your plan book.
Import Other Calendars Into Your Teacher Planner
Picture this: You and your co-teachers are sitting in a meeting. (Because teachers are always in meetings, right?)
Someone needs to know the end of the grading period, or the date of an official school function.
How long does it take everyone to find their school or district academic year calendar? Do several people flip through their planners? Do other teachers have the calendar in a different notebook, perhaps sitting in their classroom? How many just go to the school website and look there?
One teacher beta tester mentioned how she wished she could import the school calendar into this teacher planner. Guess what? Her wish came true!
In the calendar video, I walk you through the simple steps of how to quickly and easily import the school or district calendar into your planner. I also show you how to link your other calendars, (Google Calendar, iCal, etc.) to your planner.
It doesn’t get more convenient than that!
Teacher Planning Pages
This planner comes with weekly planning pages you can customize to fit your own personal teaching style.
Change up the colors and fonts in the planner. I love to add bold bright pops of color to the things we do every week. Whether it’s another teaching pushing in, or the class going to another place, such as P. E. those pops of highlight make it easy to see. It’s great when you have substitute teachers, too.
On some pages you can even customize the layout. Do you prefer your days across the top and subjects down the side? You can set it up that way. Do you want your planner to have days down the side and subjects across the top? That works, too!
A Variety of Planning Pages
Keep track of the plans for your small groups and for your scaffolding and differentiation strategies with dedicated planning pages.
Keep track of the different groups in your class, whether it’s for math, ELA, or teams for PBL or STEAM work. Duplicate the sheets as you find more uses for them
Think of the days when your administrator or mentor teacher wants to observe you teaching a class. They’re going to want a copy of your lesson plan, right? You have planner pages for a detailed lesson plan that you can print and share with them. They include all the components of a great lesson plan, including the hook, differentiation, and follow up reflections.
- Plan for the year ahead with a Year-at-a-Glance sheet.
- Plan for a month with sheets to record the important lessons or units you’ll do each month.
- Plan for how and when to reteach a topic or skill. Record when you did the reteaching and how you did it.
Student and Family Contact Pages
No planner is complete without pages for student information and family information. There’s a page to record contact information, allergies, if they wear glasses, and more. Plus, you can customize it for anything else you need to track.
Do you want to give it a little extra pizazz? In this planner, you can import your students’ pictures into your class list if you’d like. These are wonderful to have in your substitute teacher binder.
You might want to create one for the class list and another for a seating chart.
Another sheet is perfect for keeping track of birthdays. Here’s a tip: get your birthday cards ready at the beginning of the year. File them in order in a card box or drawer.
When you see the student’s special day on your calendar, you already have the card ready to go.
Grab a free set of colorful, editable birthday cards from my store on TPT.
Imagine having all your important notes in one place. You can with these other essential pages, such as attendance, data tracking, parent conference notes, a password tracker, and more.
Look Inside Before You Decide
I understand buying a planner online without seeing what’s inside can feel like a gamble. If you’re curious to see this teacher planner in action, here’s short 1 minute video so you can take a look inside before you decide.
More Video Tutorials to Help You Get Started
In addition to the overview, I have a private playlist with more videos.
- Planner Overview and Navigation
- Setting Up Your School Calendar
- Linking to External Calendars and Tools
- How to Print the Pages of Your Planner
If there’s something else you want to see, let me know and I can make a video and add it to the private playlist.
If you want to try out my Smart Tasks and Goals Tracker for free, you can grab one right here. Once you’ve tried it, you’ll have an idea of how dynamic the teacher planner can be. By the way, the smart task and goal tracker is included in the teacher planner.
How to Use Your Planner Effectively
You can maximize this planner by combining it with a gradebook. I made them to work together. (You can get gradebooks from Kindergarten through 8th grade.)
Link lessons from your planner into your gradebook. Keep track of what lessons you’ve graded and which are still pending.
If you have a quiz in Google Forms (™) you can link to the quiz in your gradebook in the assignment row.
If you use my curriculum map system, you can link the lessons from your curriculum map into your planner, and then into your gradebook.
Everything fits together.
What Teachers Are Saying About This Teacher Planner
Are You Ready to Get Your New Digital Teacher Planner in Sheets?
The teacher plan book in sheets in available at these sites:
TPT
ConvertKit
Etsy (soon)
Do you prefer Slides instead of Sheets? I have a planner in Slides for you. You can use it in notes apps with a stylus or type right into it.
Do you have a teacher friend who’s looking for a great planner? Please share the link to this blog post and help a friend out. Bring them over to the digital side!