I know what you are thinking. The teacher planner of your dreams? You dream of teacher planners? Oh, do I ever. Every school year, I would search online for a teacher planner that met all my needs. I love the Erin Condren planners, but they are so expensive, especially to ship to Canada. And so many of the digital ones are just so...busy? I find I get distracted by too much colour and imagery. So this year, I sat down and decided to design my own. It's simple, clean, and pretty!
Now, I personally don't like carrying around a big binder for a planner. It's just a little too bulky for me. So I did some research this year, and decided to try two alternate methods: the Happy Planner, and the Kikki-k planner.
Option 1: The Happy Planner
I purchased the Big Happy Planner from Michaels, with a 50% off coupon so it was very inexpensive. I love how it is fully adjustable - you can remove and add pages easily. I removed essentially all of the pages, except for the dividers, and then printed out my planner.
You can buy arc punches to do the hole punching on the happy planner, but to save money I just took my $1 single hole punch and did it all myself. You can punch multiple pages at once and it really didn't take much time (or effort).
Step 1: Print out planner pages. Use a heavier weight paper than I did for this! This was just regular printer paper but I ended up getting 26lb paper from Staples and it is much nicer. Pens won't bleed through and it's a thicker quality.
Step 2: Lay a discarded Happy Planner sheet over top of them and secure with clips.
Step 3: Using single hole punch, make a hole where every Happy Planner hole was.
Step 4: Cut out the little lines so that the pages can be inserted into the rings.
Step 5: Insert pages and enjoy your beautiful new planner! I also made some new labels for some of the dividers I did not want so that they better suited my needs. I made one each for School Info, Planning, Assessment, and Notes. To make these, I used size 14 Century Gothic font and printed on sticker paper. I trimmed them and put them over the existing dividers.
Option 2: Kikki-k Planner
I ordered this Kikki-k planner when it was on clearance and I love it. The colours are so cute and it is so sturdy. I initially wanted to use it for my teacher planner, so I printed out the A5 version (also included in my download), but to be honest, it was just too small to be practical. So I think I'll still use it as a personal planner in the mean time.
There you have it, folks! Two inexpensive ways to get creative with your teacher planner. This would of course work with any printable planner. The best part about it (in my opinion!) is that with both ways you can add in pages as you wish. I'm going to add in my school hand book, important hand outs, etc. I'm also planning to make a laminated pocket folder for the Happy Planner, so if you would like to see a tutorial on that please let me know.
Happy planning!!
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