Every teacher needs to know the best ring binder tips for classroom use because ring binders are good for many purposes in the classroom. Teacher binders are essential for keeping your daily and weekly plans organized and for having easy access to all of your classroom forms. You can use them for storing and organizing your lesson plans, classroom forms, posters, calendar pages, classroom centers, and you can even flip them into desk-top flip charts. Students also use ring binders for storing their notes, handouts, books, and stationery.

I love to find awesome classroom ideas. As an Amazon affiliate, I may earn a commission for purchases using my links. The ideas and paid links below are to help you make the most of your teacher binders and student binders.

Ring Binder Tips for Classroom Use

These are my Ring Binder Tips for Classroom Use:

1. Choose binders that are durable.
2. Use binders that can be personalized with a title page inserted at the front with your name and class information and other information along the spine of the binder.
3. Don’t overcrowd your binder, choose a 2″ or 3″ ring binder for larger volumes of pages.
4. Select a binder with inner pockets on the inside of the front and back.
5. Know that binders are not limited to storing papers, they are also handy for keeping your stationery tools in one place.
6. Use bakeware racks in your shelves to neatly store your binders in an upright position. See more ways to store ring binders in this blog post.

How Teachers are Using Ring Binders

Use zippered binder pouches: You can always get zippered binder pouches or cases. Keep students’ classroom stationery, flash cards, and centers in them.

Use a table top flipbook binder for classroom presentations: Here’s a tip I got from ChartChums. I’m not sure how they did it but it looks like they inverted a binder and slid the sloping back flap into a long reinforced sleeve that folds under to hold the end of the front flap in place (left picture above). This is a fabulous idea because I’d rather pay less for a strong ring binder that I can invert than to pay for a custom made one.

Use free teacher binder pages for your ring binders: These are Free Teacher Planning Pages. Get more free binder printables here!

How to Make DIY Pouches for Classroom Ring Binders

As teachers, we are great at improvising. I saw this idea in Pinterest and had to try it for myself. It is a very simple DIY project – making storage packets for your binder to store your centers or classroom stationery. 

To make your own re-sealable binder pouches, you must:

1. Run a line of duct tape along the sealed ends of clear sandwich bags.
2. line up the first bag to your binder rings to mark out where the holes will be punched out.
3. Punch out the holes with a hole puncher.
4. Add your new DIY binder pouches to your binder rings. Now you can store items in your binder pouches.

I am sure that you already use some of these ring binder tips for classroom use and if you want to share any of your unique ideas, please leave me a comment below this post.

If you are looking for a new teacher planner template, I have a black and white one and colorful one in my TpT collection. See them here. They are updated for you each year.

Happy teaching!