• From kindergarten through college, students go through a lot of paper and school notebooks, as they’re a key component in taking notes and learning.
  • We rounded up the best notebooks for elementary, middle, high school, and college students to prepare them for back-to-school.
  • Our pick for the best school notebook overall is the Five Star Spiral Notebook 1 Subject – it’s durable, versatile, and offers a lot of bang for your buck.

With a master’s degree in education and years of teaching under my belt, I’ve seen and bought my fair share of notebooks.

Some students, school districts, and colleges have made the switch away from paper and have gone completely digital, but you still might want to get a physical notebook or two – research has shown that students who write their notes down (as opposed to typing them) perform better on tests.

As a teacher, I’ve seen this firsthand. Students just don’t seem to internalize their notes as well when they don’t write them out by hand. It’s also so much easier for them to get distracted when they’re using a device – it’s almost impossible for them to ignore a notification.

Fortunately, notebooks are an area of your back-to-school shopping where you need to splurge to get a good product, but there are some things to consider when shopping for basics like this. To find the best notebooks, I drew on own years of experience with notebooks as a student and a teacher, and scoured the Internet for ones with the best reviews as well.

Here are the best school notebooks you can buy:

Prices and links are current as of 7/21/2020. Added additional purchasing links, a slide of new products we are currently testing for an update, and links to other back-to-school guides.

The best overall

The Five Star Spiral Notebook 1 Subject is simple, versatile, and durable with a water-resistant plastic cover.

When I was a student, Five Star was always the top notebook brand, and when I became a teacher, it continued to be my favorite. It was also one of the most ubiquitous notebooks I saw in the classroom.

Five Star notebooks are well-made and affordable. While some other notebooks quickly show their wear as the school year goes on, many Five Star notebooks look good as new even on the last day of school. I rarely see them rip or get destroyed, even with heavy use and lack of care. The notebooks' durability is largely thanks to the water-resistant cover.

This classic one-subject notebook has pockets inside to store handouts, worksheets, and loose paper. It also has ink-bleed-resistant paper with perforations so it's easy to rip out a page. You can get this notebook in many different colors, which is perfect for organizing classes by color, and it comes in sets of three or six.

Unless you're going to be writing an extensive amount, a one-subject 100-page notebook is usually enough for one class.

Pros: Durable, water-resistant cover, built-in pockets, ink-bleed-resistant paper, colorful covers are easy to organize

Cons: Some shoppers find the paper to be too thin

The best for elementary school

Foto: Source: Staples

The Staples Primary Composition Book has solid and dotted lines to help young kids learn to write accurately.

When kids are just learning how to write, it can be overwhelming for them to imagine an entire page of lines filling up with new words. This composition notebook has a blank space at the top of each page to encourage kids to draw and be creative, which can be much less intimidating.

The lines in this notebook are standard grade-school lines, which are solid and dotted lines that help students write neatly and learn the difference between uppercase and lowercase letters. Standard grade school lines help kids learn both print and cursive.

While spiral notebooks with perforated sheets are popular in the higher grades, this notebook has a sewn binding so little hands don't accidentally tear out pages. It also features number and letter grids on the inside front cover to help kids learn to print and recognize their letters and numbers.

Pros: Space to draw and color, pages are securely sewn in, grade school-ruled lines help teach proper handwriting

Cons: Cover is plain, but some kids might be more drawn to notebooks with bright colors and fun characters on the cover

The best for middle school

Foto: Source: Staples

Mead 1 Subject Wide-Ruled Spiral Notebook has plenty of space between lines to help writers who are still perfecting their technique.

This notebook is super affordable, so you can stock up right around the age when kids are mastering their handwriting skills and writing tons of their own stories.

In middle school when students are still perfecting their handwriting and working on writing neatly, a wide-ruled notebook is ideal. The space between lines gives them room to write larger letters. As they improve their handwriting, they'll be able to write smaller.

While I typically recommend notebooks with more durable covers, I like the Mead 1 Subject Spiral Notebook specifically for middle school kids because these notebooks come in different colors for visual organization.

Mead also periodically comes out with fun designs; past notebooks have featured puppies, kittens, and dinosaurs. These may interest students in later elementary school and early middle school who are ready for a notebook but are still drawn to cute designs.

In middle school, students might be asked to get a different notebook for each subject, so I like that these are inexpensive and come in multiple colors so they're easy to organize by class. Perforated pages also make it easy for students to tear out sheets if needed.

Pros: Wide-ruled paper is helpful to perfect handwriting skills, cheap, multiple color options, fun cover designs

Cons: Covers aren't as durable as other options

The best for high school

Foto: Source: Amazon

The Oxford 1-Subject Poly Notebook College Ruled is durable and has 100 pages of college-ruled paper to accommodate more notes.

When you get to high school, this might be the first time a teacher requires a college-ruled notebook. The difference between college-ruled and wide-ruled is that the lines are closer together on college-ruled paper. When high school teachers assign a one-page handwritten assignment, they might specify that it needs to be written on college-ruled paper.

Since the Oxford Poly Notebook is one subject and comes in multiple colors, students can easily organize their classes visually without carrying around extra papers or notebooks in the morning for a class they have in the afternoon. When my students bought three- or five-subject notebooks, they often ended up carrying around bulky notebooks, so having one-subject notebooks solves this problem.

I also like that this notebook has 100 sheets. Smaller notebooks with only 70 sheets sometimes run out of room by the end of the school year.

The Oxford Poly Notebook has a tough cover that's moisture- and tear-resistant. It also features a durable divider pocket inside, smear-resistant paper, and three-hole-punched pages. As a teacher, I always preferred notebook pages that were perforated, which you'll find in this notebook as well. When teachers ask for papers to be handed in, they prefer the clean edge of a perforated page.

Oxford does make a cheaper version of this notebook with a less durable cover and I almost recommended it since the price point is a bit lower, but as a high school teacher, I've seen too many of those notebooks get destroyed by lockers and students.

Pros: Durable cover and inside pocket, college-ruled lines, perforated pages

Cons: Cost can add up if you have to buy multiple notebooks for various classes

The best for college

Foto: Source: Amazon

The Five Star Advance Wirebound Notebook 3 Subject, College Ruled has moveable pocket dividers and keeps your notes in great shape years after you graduate from college.

Most of my notebooks from elementary school and high school are long gone, but I've kept a lot of my college notebooks to refer to throughout my career. That's why this Five Star Advance notebook is a top pick. It's durable enough to last for years, and in my case, actually has. And if for some reason it doesn't last, this notebook also has Five Star's last-all-year guarantee.

Some of the standout features include movable plastic dividers with pockets, a spiral guard to prevent snags, and a pen/pencil holder. This is also a great pick for college students since it's a three-subject notebook. They can use the whole notebook for a course that requires a lot of note-taking and writing, or they can use it to organize similar classes together. The movable dividers also make it versatile; maybe one class only uses 50 pages while another uses 150. The fixed divider means no wasted pages.

Pros: Cloth cover over coils, moveable pocket dividers, extremely durable

Cons: The notebook can't be put in a three-ring binder, each individual page is three-hole punched

What we're looking forward to

Foto:

We're testing additional notebooks for an update to this guide in August 2020. Check back for our results.

Check out our other back-to-school guides

Foto: Source: Vladimir Vladimirov/Getty Imges

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