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Best Lesson Plan Websites

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Free Websites for Lesson Planning, Activities and Projects for Teachers

These 12 outstanding websites with free lesson plans for teachers also include unit plans and guided, project-based learning plans for elementary, middle and high school students in all subjects. The web offer a wealth great lesson resources for both teachers and homeschooling parents!

You'll find much more here than lesson planning ideas. Many of these websites are rich in primary sources, online interactives, graphic organizers, worksheets and assessments.

Photo of Long Beach, CA, teacher Dianne Swanson and 2nd graders, courtesy of Western Growers Charitable Foundation

Contents at a Glance

Thinkfinity
Edutopia
Curriki
ALEX - Alabama Learning Exchange
UEN - Utah Educational Network
How to Write a Lesson Plan
PBL Online
NeoK12
WebQuest.org
Zunal WebQuest Maker and Lesson Director...
Daily Lesson Plan Archive
TeachersFirst
MrDonn.org
Best Kids Educational Websites
LearningReviews.com
More "Best Educational Websites&quo...

Thinkfinity

Strength: Portal to some of the best sample lesson plans in Math, Science, Social Studies, Read and Writing, and the Arts

My hands-down favorite lesson planning resource is Thinkfinity by Verizon Foundation. Here is a portal to some of the best lesson plan resources on the web - and much, much, more. Thinkfinity has a portal for parents to support their children's learning, a portal for kids with games, activities, book lists and homework help. And there's a portal for after-school instructors with activities and project-based learning modules.

The lessons and interactives are from the most recognized content partners in the country: ArtsEdge for visual and performing arts, EconEdLink for money, finances and economics, EDSitement for federal government humanities resources, Illuminations for math, LiteracyNetwork and ReadWriteThink for language arts, Science NetLinks, Smithsonian's History Explorer, and National Geographic Xpeditions for geography. These resources have been compiled by some of the best-respected experts in the country in their content areas.

Resources from the content partners include lesson plans, interactives, primary sources, worksheets, references, media and assessments.

The search feature is highly customizable and user-friendly. Select any combination of subject area, grade level, resource type or content partner. Teachers and homeschooling parents will find lesson plans aligned with their state's and national standards.

Take the Thinkfinity Tour to see what they have to offer. Then start your planning with their database of more than 55,000 resources.

Edutopia

Strength: Inspirational examples of how innovative lesson approaches are making a difference

Edutopia takes a different approach to lesson planning and design. Here you'll have the opportunity to see a variety of different lesson styles in action - to see what works in public education. The emphasis is on integrated studies, cooperative learning, and comprehensive assessment. Edutopia also has an extensive collection of resources on project-based learning, including videos illustrating lessons from across the country in action.

Integral to their approach is an intense awareness of individual learning styles and the multiple intelligences of the students, as well as the teacher's professional development.

Listen to George Lucas talk about the George Lucas Educational Foundation and the goals of Edutopia. I hope their articles, videos and resources can inspire you as they have me.

An Introduction to Project-Based Learning

from Edutopia.org

Curriki

Strength: Collaborative lesson plans and units that incorporate technology

Another approach to lesson planning combines the lesson format with technology and collaboration in Curriki, a curriculum-centered wiki. The focus is on lessons in math, science, social studies, and English & language arts, but a broad range of subject areas is available.

The resources range from individual lesson plans to units and even open source textbooks, activities and videos. Browse the database of more than 20,000 resources. Or by using the advanced search feature, you can select top-rated sources by Curriki members and Curriki reviewers, media type and instruction type, as well as the more traditional subject and grade level search.

Curriki has many resource partners. Among them are Nortel LearniT TeachiT, EDC for global education, health and economics, Cool School for conflict resolution, Free High School Science Texts (FHSST) for science and math materials, as well as video content from Meet Me at the Corner, Next Vista for Learning, NewsHour Extra and the.News with Jim Lehrer, and several more.

With free registration, you can make your own contributions, collaborate on projects, review resources, and save your own collection of favorite resources from the site. Learn more about the full capabilities registered users have for collaboration on the Curriki Video Tutorial.

ALEX - Alabama Learning Exchange

Strength: Award-winning unique sample lesson planning resources

Most states have their own databases of lesson plans aligned with their state's standards. One that I particularly like for its ease of use and unique contents is ALEX, from the Alabama Department of Education.

The Alabama Learning Exchange has a database of lesson plans with a customizable search feature by any combination of grade and subject, as well as content areas in information literacy, character education, and counseling and guidance.

Beyond lesson plans, ALEX provides links for teachers and students to other Internet resources in the subject areas. And they provide a podcast treasure of short videos, most created in Alabama, in several subjects.

These features, as well as additional resources available to Alabama teachers, earned ALEX the 2009 Digital Education Achievement Award.

UEN - Utah Educational Network

Strength: Sample lesson plans in PE, career and technical education

Another state website of lessons that has caught my eye is the Utah Educational Network, UEN, from the Utah State Office of Education and Utah System of Higher Education. Like ALEX, UEN provides an extensive database of lesson plans aligned with state standards.

Also like ALEX, the subject areas go beyond academic. UEN has a strong database of lessons in physical education, engineering, technology, life skills, career, critical workplace skills, and business.

Their lessons also take advantage of the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives, one of my favorite sets of interactives to help learn math skills. NLVM was designed and is hosted at Utah State University.

How to Write a Lesson Plan

PBL Online

Strength: Well-developed and tested sample plans for project-based and problem-based learning

Project-based learning (PBL) is a lesson planning approach advocated by a small but growing number of websites. PBL Online, hosted by the Buck Institute for Education, stands out among these sites because they have tools and guidance to help you design your project, as well as a database of more than 60 projects you can use as-is or that you can adapt to your needs and goals. To learn more about PBL, read What is Project Based Learning?

Projects typically last several weeks or semester-long and encompass several content areas and presentation skills. Some projects call for students to conduct research and design a project that will be displayed in a local museum, or presented to students in younger grades. Many are engineering projects where students design a ramp, catapult, building or robot. Students may present their projects to the school board or experts in their field of study for review, questioning and critique.

Most of the PBL projects I've seen are written for middle and high school students, building on skills and knowledge acquired in elementary and middle school.

PBL Online requires free registration to view the projects and to use the interactive tools to construct your own projects.

NeoK12

Strengths: Large cataloged collection of kid-friendly educational videos

A new discovery of mine is NeoK12 Educational Videos for Kids. The smart teachers at NeoK12 have cataloged some of the best educational videos available on YouTube, MetaCafe, Flickr and other video sites. They've extracted the (sometimes inappropriate) comments and other "noise" to bring you videos in math, science, social studies and language arts for all grade levels.

The videos are categorized by subject area and topics such as gravitation, the civil rights movement, history and trigonometry. There are more than 2,600 videos in 140 topic area. All of the videos have been reviewed by K-12 teachers and are safe for kids.

With free registration, you can create a dashboard of your favorite videos. You can also take advantage of a new feature of the site - presentations. NeoK12 has a collection of creative common pictures in each topic area. Use the NeoK12 presentation tool and the pictures to create a presentation and save it to your dashboard. Some of the topics even include assessments.

Given what it has to offer, there's no wonder that NeoK12 was selected as one of the American Library Association's 2009 Great Websites for Kids.

WebQuest.org

Strength: Premier collection of WebQuest lessons

A popular lesson-planning tool in recent years is WebQuests. A WebQuest is designed to guide students through using online resources, as well as those available at school or home, to analyze and evaluate a topic being studied. Webquest.org by the designer of the WebQuest concept, Bernie Dodge of San Diego State University, has the largest collection of more than 2,500 WebQuests.

The site also offer valuable guidance and links to online tools you can use to build your own WebQuests.

Many WebQuests can turn into little more than a scavenger hunt for students to find and record information from the Internet. The best quests, though, provoke students to synthesize what they've learned into a new understanding of the topic.

Since not all WebQuests are created equal, Tom March, one of Bernie Dodge's associates in developing the concept, set up a parallel website in which he evaluated the best of the WebQuests. On Best WebQuests.com, he compiled a database of nearly 200 WebQuests by grade level and subject area that met the criteria. The database is no longer updated, but still useful.

Zunal WebQuest Maker and Lesson Directory

Easy Webquest making tool with extensive database of WebQuests

Another valuable WebQuest resources is Zunal WebQuest Maker, a fast and super simple tool to use for creating WebQuests.

In addition to the outstanding quest-making tool, Zunal has a directory of more than 80,000 WebQuests categorized by subject area and identifying targeted grade levels and cross-curriculum connections. You can also view most reviewed and latest published.

Daily Lesson Plan Archive

Strength: Cross-curricular lessons plans on current events

Current events are a wonderful source of material to make learning relevant for your kids. The New York Times is a tremendous help here with their Daily Lesson Plan Archive. The NYT has partnered with Bank Street College of Education to produce the lesson plans.

The site has more than a database of more than 2,000 mostly cross-curricular lessons related to current events. Find lessons by subject area and grade level, targeted mainly to students in grades 6-12.

In addition to the search feature, the lessons are accessible from their Issues in Depth on topics such as "Hurricane Katrina: Storm and Crisis" and "Looking Back: September 11". These in-depth themes include relevant NYT articles and blogs and links to other resources.

TeachersFirst

Strength: Lesson plans that incorporate technology

Teachers are always looking for ways to incorporate technology into lessons. TeachersFirst by The Source for Learning, Inc, is a great place to go to for these types of lessons.

The materials in TeachersFirst are written by experienced, professional educators. They've created lessons and units that incorporate interactive learning with Internet resources. In addition, there are brain twisters for elementary and middle school students, and puzzles for all grade levels.

The interactive resources listed on TeachersFirst have comments from educators with suggestions for how to use them the in the classroom. The appropriate grade range is listed with each resource.

A terrific feature are the ready-to-go classroom activities and presentations for projection or whiteboards.

Another useful section of the site is the Professional Resources area, chock full of ideas for teachers "In the Trenches." These include bulletin board hang ups, first day activities, rubrics, handouts, ideas for substitutes, and technology tips and ideas for differentiating instruction.

MrDonn.org

Strength: Social Studies Lesson Plans, Presentations and Interactives

I'll close with one of my favorites for lessons, presentations, clipart, video resources, and activities - MrDonn.org by by Don and Linn Donn.

As an elementary school teacher, I've greatly appreciated the readability and clarity of the Donns' resources in history, government and geography. On the Internet, their materials are the easiest I've found to help kids to understand these often complex topics.

While the strength of the site lies in their social studies lesson plan materials, MrDonn.org has material and links to resources in virtually every subject area. Most, but not all, is focused on kids in grades K-8. But I have talked to teachers who have used their material with high school students, especially for review.

Finally, the Donns have partnered with Phillip Martin, who has created a fantastic collection of clipart in all subjects. Martin's Clipart Collection is free for teachers, kids and non-profits to use.

Best Kids Educational Websites

Project Based Learning by Subject and Grade Level

In this PBL blog post, I describe project-based learning and provide links to projects organized by subject and grade level, taken from dozens of sources. There are posts detailing project ideas in language arts, math, social studies and science, gleaned from dozens of sources. You'll also find links to PBL project templates.

LearningReviews.com

List of lesson plan websites

This Top 12 list is just a sample of the free lesson plan collections available to you on the web. There are many more sites that specialize in providing lesson plans in particular subjects, such as math, science, language arts, and PE. Take a look at 100 lesson plan websites listed on LearningReviews.com:

LearningReviews.com Lesson Planning
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LearningReviews.com Project Based Learning