Sunday, March 22, 2009

40 Places to Find Free Lesson Plans Online

Looking for new lesson plans to implement in the classroom? Here are 40 sites that offer free lesson plans for teachers.

General Lesson Plans

  • Teachers.Net - With more than 4,000 lesson plans in every grade level imaginable, this site is one of the best places to find free lesson plans online.
  • LessonPlansPage.com - Hot Chalk's Lesson Plan Page offers more than 3,500 lesson plans, including seasonal plans, science experiments, and math worksheets.
  • Teachnology - This online teacher's resource has nearly 30,000 free lesson plans in their lessons plan center.
  • Education World - Known as the "educator's best friend," Education World hosts thousands of teacher-submitted lesson plans grouped by subject.
  • Daily Lesson Plan - The New York Times Learning Network and Teacher Connections have teamed up to create a lesson plan site for middle school and high school teachers. A new lesson plan is added each day.
  • PBS Teachers - PBS provides many great resources for teachers, including standards-based resources and lesson plans.
  • Discovery Education - Discovery Education's Lesson Plan Library is a great place to find free lesson plans online. The site offers lesson plans for grades K thru 12 in a wide range of subjects.
  • Scholastic - Teachers can get timely lesson plans and units from this Scholastic site.
  • Thinkfinity - This site, created by the Verizon Foundation, offers many free educational resources, including free lesson plans and interactives.
  • Microsoft - The free lesson plans available through the Microsoft site cover more than just computers and technology. There are lesson plans for a wide range of subjects and grade levels.
  • Teachers Network - The Teacher's Network is a good place to find comprehensive lesson plans created by new and veteran teachers.
  • Elementary Education - This About.com site hosts hundreds of free lesson plans and activities for elementary school teachers.
  • Secondary Education - This site, also from About.com, offers hundreds of free lesson plans and lesson plan resources for teachers of grades 7 thru 12.
  • Education Place - Houghton Mifflin Harcourt offers textbook support materials and lesson plans for K thru 6 teachers on their website.
  • EdHelper - Teachers can get lesson plans, create puzzles, and sign up for a free newsletter on EdHelper.
  • A to Z Teacher Stuff - This teacher-created site is aimed at busy teachers who want to find online resources quickly. The site links to thousands of lesson plans, worksheets, and printables.
  • Lesson Planz - Lesson Planz in a searchable directory of free online lesson plans. The directory includes resources for all subjects and grade levels.
  • Lesson Plans and Teaching Strategies - This California State University site offers an orderly list of free lesson plans and activities for K thru12 teachers in addition to several articles on teaching strategies.
  • Teachnet.com - This site offers a modest collection of free lesson plans for art, science, math, music, health, and social studies teachers.
  • Sites For Teachers - This web directory lists hundreds of quality sites for teachers, including sites that offer free lesson plans.
Art and Music Lesson Plans
  • KinderArt - KinderArt has the largest collection of free arts and crafts lesson plans on the web.
  • PrincetonOnline - The Incredible @rt Department at Princeton Online has developed an entire section of art lesson plans for students of all ages.
  • Core Knowledge - This site hosts art and music lesson plans for elementary and middle school students.
  • ArtsEdge - This Kennedy Center website has nearly 500 free lesson plans for music teachers. Lessons cover grades K thru 12.
  • Rock & Roll Library - The Rock & Roll Library offers eighteen comprehensive music lessons that can be used in the classroom.

Math and Science Lesson Plans

  • Illuminations - This site is a great place to find free lesson plans and resources for teaching math. Illuminations offers more than 500 lessons in all.
  • Columbia Education Center - CEC's no-frills website offers dozens of free mathematics lesson plans sorted by grade level.
  • Math-Drills.com - This site doesn't have lesson plans, but it does offer more than 6,000 free math worksheets with answer keys.
  • GirlTECH - Designed by GirlTECH teachers, these lesson plans cover math, science, and technology. Lessons are available for grades K thru 12.
  • The Center for Science Education - This CSE site hosts a nice collection of teacher-developed earth and space science lessons for grades 3 thru 12.

Language Arts Lesson Plans

  • Read Write Think - This International Reading Association site provides hundreds of high quality reading lessons for grades K thru 12.
  • CanTeach - CanTeach offers a modest collection of lesson plans designed for students who are beginning reading and writing.
  • SCORE - The California Schools Online Resources for Education (SCORE) provides thousands of literature lesson plans.
  • LitPlans.com - Designed specifically for middle school and high school teachers, this site lists literature lesson plans, unit plans, study guides, teacher guides, and more.
  • EDSITEment - This site hosts a wide range of foreign language lesson plans, including plans for teachers of French, German, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Greek, Japanese, and Russian.

ESL Lesson Plans

  • English as a Second Language - This About.com site has English lesson plans for all learning levels as well as other ESL resources.
  • Using English - Using English offers nearly 200 free PDF lesson plans and handouts for ESL and EFL teachers.
  • The Internet TESL Journal - This site has hundreds of lessons for ESL teachers. Lessons cover a wide range of subjects, including grammar, reading, writing, and vocabulary.
  • ESL Galaxy - With nearly 3,000 free worksheets and lessons as well as other resources, ESL Galaxy is a great online resource for ESL teachers.
  • TEFL.net - TEFL.net offers free lesson plans, worksheets, and a worksheet generator. Other resources include activity ideas and teaching tips.

Guest post from Karen Schweitzer who is a writer for TeacherDegree.org, a site that specializes in teaching degree information.