How to Make a Teacher Planning Binder {Binder Basics}

By Leslie Simpson · About 6 minutes to read this article.

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Teacher planning is part of what we do as teachers to create lessons and plan for students. These are the key items I include in my teacher planning binder.

Having a sense of teacher organization and incorporating organization into teacher planning is possible.

How to make a teacher planning binder the easy way

Readers, I'd like you to meet my sanity saver. This is where I start each year before working in my classroom. My binder.

This baby is my planner, organizer and keep-me-sane-inizer. That's why I'm devoting an entire post to it.

No, really, it just plays a huge part in my day and I'm excited to share it in the hopes that it might help that newbie teacher feel a little bit more "above" water. Needless to say, I've got lots of things to share.

Binder Basics {How to Make a Teacher Planning Binder}

My binder generally stays at my desk, but in a pinch I can grab it and head to a meeting if needed, or if I am doing any weekend planning, fold it up - and I'm gone!

These are the binder basics that make this my most useful tool every year. Affiliate links may be included.

What to include in your planning binder

I change the tabs every year to match my current needs. This past year I had a tab for "student teacher" and this year, I am adding my long term math planning goals.

Tabs I have:

Lesson Plans
Calendar
To Do List
Standards
Long Term Math Plans
Sight Words
Meeting Notes
Families

I really like the (affiliate) see through tabs so that I'm only changing the names of the tabs on the sheet that lies in the back of my binder.

Lesson plans

At the forefront of my binder (and generally where it lays open to all the time) are my lesson plans. I keep a weekly spread format which helps me to have a daily picture and my weekly one all at the same time.

I have never actually used a planning book.

I've just always made my own.

The reason being: I never wanted to write "gym" more than once if I really didn't have to.

{I just like working efficiently that way}. You can totally make your own lesson plan template too!

Lesson Planning Template

Do you want to create your own lesson planning template and work smart too?

Here is my set of lesson planning pages in a two-page format for your binder that you can totally tweak each year to make your own custom lesson planning pages.

My favorite thing I've learned about having lesson plans in a binder:

Always print double-sided, and clip the left-hand side pages to the divider (with a paper clip or binder clip).

That way when I flip the divider tab, it opens directly to the latest page I'm working on.

I do this with almost every tab!

It may be a small thing, but no more flipping through pages unless necessary is awesome!

Calendar

My planning calendar comes next and is my "big picture" tool.

I desperately needed this my first year and am so glad every year to sketch out where I want to go.

It makes my weekly planning go much faster, but also keeps me focused on where we're going.

I've always just used one of those giant desk calendars or cut up the free ones from the bank and inserted it into my binder, but this year I took a bit of time to make my own.

While it took a bit of time to set up, I LOVE the results and am excited about using it!

And can I just say, I love using handwriting fonts because they are {{way}} cooler than my real handwriting.

Printable Calendar Template for Teacher Planning

Teacher Planning Calendar

I've loved it so much (and so have you) that I've shared it every year since this post first came out... and this calendar has come a long way!

To-Do list

A somewhat more recent addition to my binder is a to-do list.

There were some weeks that I literally just couldn't fit everything into the before and after school prep spaces on my lesson plan pages.

I needed one place to write stuff down so I wouldn't drown in sticky notes.

To Do List

It's nice to have when planning crazy full weeks!

Standards

I've always kept my standards on hand to help with planning purposes and this year is no different.

My standards lists are slightly longer however with the Common Core being in place at our grade level. No matter - in the binder they go!

Kindergarten Quarterly Common Core Standards

I'd love to make it easy for you to print and add these kindergarten standards to your binder.

Highlight the ones that are on your report cards to ensure they get your full attention.

Long term math plans

I am keeping my math schedule (long term plans) which lays out the nine weeks of a quarter where I plan on taking each group.

These are basic sketches for each of my math zones for each of the nine weeks because the groups will determine the pace, but its a guide for me and for planning purposes.

Sight word songs

And I like to keep my sight word songs handy that way if I was to blank out on a tune, I could find it super fast.

(Okay, so I wrote these songs - I should remember them. But I am sooooo not a morning person.}

Sight Word Songs

Meeting notes

I like to take notes during a meeting that are meaningful to me. We get agendas, but that includes information for everyone, so I simply jot down what I need to know and remember.

Staff Meeting Notes Paper

Plus, if I have my binder in a meeting I can be productive {wink} and always have my master calendar and schedule to write down changes in.

Family info

My binder sits near my computer and phone so I like to have details about my kinders and their families one flip away to save time. I keep a one-page sheet as my cheat sheet at the back since I use this the least.

Kindergarten Student Info Sheet

Work smart - save your plans

The last tidbit I have to share? I take out my previous year's set of lesson plans and bind them to keep close by if needed for planning.

I've found it a great help for remembering some of those little things that are otherwise so easy to forget.

If you like this post, then be sure to subscribe today. I look forward to sharing ideas with you weekly just like this one.

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