Welcome class to Lesson Planner and Teacher Binder 101, where you will learn all things binder-related! To be upfront, I didn’t have one of these my first year of teaching but now it’s the nucleus of my classroom (this + planner = complete nucleus, look at me combining science and math and organization!).
I didn’t even hear about teacher binders until I moved down to elementary where they are like a thing! Middle school teachers, we might need to step up our organization game! While it is WAY easier to stay organized with 30 kids than 120 kids, it is totally possible to use a lesson planner and teacher binder in middle school. I’m here to share with you the ways a Middle School Teacher Binder is different than one made for elementary.
This is one of the many spaces I have in my classroom where I control the classroom clutter. If you are looking for even more ways to stop drowning in papers, be sure to check out this post! I share 9 ways to reign in the chaos and keep track of all the important things.
Teacher Binder Basics
Starting with the binder itself, find one you love that is also durable. Here is not the place to skimp on quality because you will be opening it to reference quite often. Target always has cute options from the Yoobi brand or you can go with a classic like Avery. Just find a high-quality durable one. Bonus points for a fun color or pattern. However, you can always make a fun cover to slip into the front to jazz your teacher binder up!
I personally use a 1-inch binder to hold all the documents. It’s a common size that isn’t too small or too big- it’s just right! This size also keeps the price lower and more readily available. It can work as either a middle school teacher lesson planner or a general teacher binder.
#1: Reference Papers in the Teacher Binder
These are all those papers that you usually get handed at the beginning of the year. Things like lunch duty schedules, testing windows, and data cut points. Papers that you will have to look at probably once a month or so are categorized as references. I keep all of these papers in this tab, easy to look at but don’t take up the valuable wall/desk space.
#2: Student Important Papers
I talked about this more in this post, but pretty much these are all the papers that have student information on it. Things like IEPs, 504s, identification cards, parent contact notes/emails, syllabus handouts, and lab safety agreements all go in here. I do sort things alphabetically by class so that it’s a bit easier to find. Everything for Kid A is all together and then everything for Kid B is next. I don’t use additional dividers between kiddos but you totally could! Post-it notes also work as tabs between kids or to mark important things.
#3: Lesson Planner Option: Standards
Behind this tab is all about the standards as well as any pacing guides to follow from the district. I usually get handed these anyway so having a place for them is important. You could put these under reference papers at the front but I like to keep this in its own tab. I include anything printed out about the standards as well as any pacing guides to follow from the district. I have thought about keeping them in my planner but I haven’t moved them yet.
#4: Lesson Planner and Grade Book
My grade book is actually a document that I keep in my lesson planner however, I store past grading quarters in my teacher binder just in case I need them later. This is helpful to have a hard copy just in case the internet cuts out or the entire system deletes your entire grade book the day before grades are due. If that sounds dramatic, I’m only speaking from experience! Nothing like having all of your grades deleted to make you keep a paper copy!
So now I keep a roster with grades for each unit on paper. The current unit stays in my lesson planner while the previous units are housed in my teacher binder.
#5: Middle School Teacher Lesson Planner
This is a separate book for me but it could totally be included in your teacher binder if you want everything all in one place. If you want to check out my teacher planner, head on over here! I have a bunch of different options for middle school and high school teachers. While there are a few that would work for elementary, most of them are geared toward those of us with fewer preps and plans.
The lesson planner is the key to keeping myself organized no matter where I am in the school. I will take my lesson planner with me to meetings, PLC time, staff meetings or just common plan time. Having it as a reference tool to use from year to year is helpful when creating a long-range plan and to prepare lesson plans faster and better.
I turn my own lesson planner into a Happy Planner with the hole punch and rings. This keeps it separate from my teacher binder while also keeping important papers together.
I have tried to combine my lesson planner and teacher binder into one unit but it just doesn’t work for me. I have too many handouts from meetings to put somewhere and once I started putting syllabi into my binder, there was no way all of that was going to fit into my planner.
If you store less paper- or keep more things digitally- then maybe combining a lesson planner and teacher binder makes more sense.
Looking for other lesson planner or teacher binder ideas?
In these blog posts, teachers share everything they keep in their teacher binders or lesson planner. Some are geared more toward elementary teachers while a few are more secondary-focused.
- Middle School and High School Lesson Plan Book– A lesson planner that is made for secondary teachers with less preps and more space!
- Curriculum Binder: Every Teachers Must-Have Tool for an Amazing Year– I love her idea to create 1 binder for anything curriculum-related. The lesson planner & standards are combined into 1 binder.
- How to Organize your Teacher Binder– she combines her teacher binder and lesson planner into 1 binder if you are interested to see how that works out
- Putting Together the Perfect Teacher Planner– tons of ideas of what else to include in your teacher binder or lesson planner
- 30+ Excellent Teacher Binder Free Printables– there’s bound to be a free lesson planner template that works perfectly for you
- The Teacher Organization System That Stopped Me From Drowning– keep track of more than just papers with these helpful tips to organization everything in your classroom
And there you have it! Everything I keep in my middle school teacher binder and lesson planner! Do you have a teacher binder? What do you keep inside? (that makes it sound like I’m asking you a deep dark secret)
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