In this Guide for Teachers, we’ll focus on how to create custom templates for our classes. Doing so ensures that every lesson will include crucial components. It will also save time by preventing you from re-writing procedures and routines that happen each day.

Pre-work: This guide assumes that you have set up an account and created your first planbook. If you haven’t done that and need some help, check out our Cc for Teachers video on Planbook Set-Up.

To get started, navigate to your planbook and click “Settings” and then choose “Change Templates." There are two ways that we can customize a template.

First, we can find the class for which we want to customize a template and then click “Edit” on the right. We can adjust any component of our template, as well as add new sections by clicking “+Add Card.”

We can add a text card, a standards search, or a google classroom card.

Additionally, it’s not uncommon for teachers to have routines and procedures that occur nearly every day. A Reading teacher, for instance, might start every class with a Do Now assignment, a trade-and-grade activity, followed by ten minutes of whole-group reading. Any of these daily routines can be added to our custom templates, so that we never have to lose time re-writing this content each day.

Here’s another way to customize a template. After clicking ‘Settings’ and “Change Templates,’ we’ll sort templates by “Template Name.”

From here, we can click ‘Edit’ next to any template and then select the classes to which we would like to apply this template.

Alternatively, we can create a template from scratch by choosing “Create a Template.” We’ll give it a title and then add sections based on our needs, by clicking “+Add Card.”

And there you have it: by creating custom templates, we can ensure that every lesson includes the components that our students need. Custom templates also help teachers to create lesson routines that work for their unique planning style. As well, by filling our custom templates with daily routines and procedures, we can save time in the day-to-day, so our hard work can be devoted to what matters most.