I made a customized planner for my son and bound it at staples. The planner the school gave out was too cluttered and not enough writing space. I made one for each nine weeks. Cover,the first three pages had blank calendars that covered that nine weeks....so August, September and October...he could use them or not but they were there. Then pages I made with 6 columns. Small first column just big enough for date, large center column for writing, three small columns just big enough for a check mark and one column big enough for due date (he only filled that in if due other than the next day)...the three small columns were: finished, packed, and turned in.
The beauty was if he only had math homework that is all he wrote down...skip a line or two and started the next day right below it.
If an assignment took three lines to write all the info down, no problem...he could use as many lines as he wanted.
And no inspirational quotes, helpful hints, distracting fun facts or illustrations....just date, assignment, done, packed, turned in, due date...just the uncluttered facts. And plenty of room. I'll never understand how the planner designers expect kids to write anything in the space they allocate.
Now he has moved to completely electronic calendar and to do lists on his smart phone...and the whole: done, pack, turn in set of actions that gave him problems is second nature to him.
