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Lesson planner

Plans that live on your actual schedule — bump a lesson and the week reflows around breaks, rotations, and locked tests.

app.pearspark.com
Planner
Your classes on their actual meeting days
ClassMon 10/12Tue 10/13Wed 10/14 In-serviceThu 10/15Fri 10/16
Lower Elem.9:00–10:00Read-aloudFractions intro9:00–10:00Spelling test9:00–10:00 Add

Bump day → the draft flows past the break to Friday. The locked test never moves.

In short

Pearspark's lesson planner is schedule-aware: teachers plan on the days their classes actually meet, and "bump" pushes lessons to the next real meeting when an assembly eats the day — locked lessons hold their date. Rich-text plans connect to standards, gradebook assignments, and library books, with a one-click substitute packet.

The planner knows your calendar

The week grid shows each class on its real meeting days — weekly patterns or A/B block rotations — with school breaks shaded. When plans slip, one click bumps everything forward to the next actual meeting, flowing across breaks; lock a lesson (a scheduled test) and the cascade moves around it.

One lesson, every group

Multi-age classrooms plan once: add differentiation groups ("3rd graders", "early finishers") as rich-text rows on a single lesson instead of writing parallel plans. Templates and copy-last-week handle the repetition.

Connected to the rest of the school

Tag the standards a lesson teaches, attach library books, and create gradebook assignments right on the lesson page — they land in the real gradebook, due on the lesson's date. Units give each class a year-at-a-glance pacing view, and the whole map rolls forward (dates shifted) when you open the next school year.

The sub packet

Small schools don't have a sub pool — coverage is the director or a parent who knows nothing about the class. One click builds a printable day for any teacher: bell schedule, class runbook (routines, written once), today's plans, and the roster with allergy alerts inline. Admins can leave feedback as comments on any lesson — a conversation, never an approval gate.

Home Days: built for hybrid schools

In a hybrid or university-model school the parent runs 2–3 school days a week at home — so the planner speaks that language. Tag a lesson campus or home, write family-facing instructions next to your private notes (mark any section staff-only), and add a checklist with time estimates, materials, and who verifies each item. "Publish to families" sends the whole week to the portal with one email per family, and the Home Day dashboard shows you Monday morning what got done at home — and where a family hit a wall.

What's included

  • Week grid on the class's actual meeting days (weekly or A/B rotation)
  • Bump lessons forward across breaks; lock lessons that can't move
  • Rich-text editor with configurable section headings
  • Differentiation groups for multi-age classrooms
  • Standards tagging + create gradebook assignments inline
  • Attach library books and materials
  • Personal templates and copy-last-week
  • Units with a year-at-a-glance pacing view
  • One-click substitute packet with runbook and safety flags
  • Comments between teachers and admins; read-only share links
  • Campus/home day types with family-facing sections and staff-only notes
  • Family checklists: time estimates, materials, parent-checks vs teacher-grades
  • Publish a week to families with one email per household
  • Home Day dashboard: check-offs and family flags per lesson and student
  • Lesson attachments (worksheets, answer keys) and classroom photo moments
  • Portal sharing per class: hidden, weekly topics, full plans, or home days only
  • Printable week plans

All of it is part of the flat price — $50/month including 20 students, then $2.50/student (volume bands down to $1.00). Nothing on this page is a paid add-on.

See it done in 60 seconds

All 30 videos

Real screen recordings, one task per minute — no fluff.

Plan a lesson in the week gridTeachers
Copy last week's lessons into this weekTeachers
Bump a lesson to the next class meetingTeachers
Plan a home day with a family checklistTeachers
Publish the week's plans to familiesTeachers
Work through the This Week home checklistFamilies

Common questions

What happens to my plans when a snow day hits?

Open the day and click "Bump day" — every unlocked lesson from that day forward moves one class meeting later, flowing around breaks and rotation days automatically. A locked lesson (say, a scheduled test) keeps its date and the rest cascade around it.

Can I share plans with someone who doesn't have an account?

Yes — each class can have a read-only share link (for a co-op partner, board member, or homeschool evaluator). It contains no student data, and disabling it kills the URL instantly.

What's in the substitute packet?

For any teacher's day: the bell schedule, each class's runbook (routines and procedures the teacher wrote once), the day's lesson plans with differentiation groups, and the roster with staff-alert allergy flags inline. Teachers print their own; admins can print any teacher's — the 6 a.m. sick-day flow.

We're a hybrid school — parents teach at home two days a week. Does this work for us?

It's built for you. Tag lessons as campus or home days, write instructions to the co-teaching parent right in the plan, and publish the week: families get one email and a merged, all-children "This Week at Home" checklist with time estimates and materials. Parents check work off (and can flag a struggle), and your Home Day dashboard shows it all Monday morning. You can even rename home days to your school's vocabulary — "Satellite Day", "Co-op Day".

Try it in the live demo

Explore lesson planner in a real sandbox school — admin, teacher, and parent views, no signup. Sample data resets daily.