Lesson Plans

This month's Surf Report highlights some of the many Web sites that provide lesson plans for kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) teachers.

Quick Links:  Cross-Curricular | Social Studies | Math & Science | Art

Cross-Curricular

The PBS Teachers site includes lesson plans based on PBS programming for grades PreK-12 on the arts, health and fitness, math, reading, science and technology and social studies.

Thinkfinity includes subject-specific websites that provide quality lesson plans for these subject areas (partner organization in parentheses): economics (Council for Economic Education), geography (National Geographic), history (Smithsonian), humanities (NEH), mathematics (NCTM), science (American Association for the Advancement of Science), and the arts (Kennedy Center).

Designed for grades 6-12 by The New York Times Learning Network, The Learning Network provides daily lesson plans based on current events and a searchable lesson plan archive.

Find a treasure-trove of K-12 curriculum materials organized by subject in The Educator's Reference Desk. Teachers submit the plans, then the lessons are evaluated before inclusion.

The Lesson Planner from the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory is intended to help teachers write focused lesson plans and curriculum units. Specific questions guide users through each section in order to create a comprehensive lesson plan aligned with standards that addresses assessment, content, teaching strategies, and use of technology.

Lesson plans from the Smithsonian Institution for arts, science, social studies, and language arts emphasize inquiry-based learning using primary sources and museum collections.

The IDEAS Web site provides links to lesson plans reviewed by Wisconsin teachers and linked to Wisconsin model academic standards.

Visit Columbia Education Center Lesson Plans for lessons submitted by teachers in language arts, math, science, social studies, and more.

Bernie Dodge's WebQuest page links to quality WebQuests created by teachers. A matrix of examples helps users find WebQuests by grade level and subject area.

Social Studies

National Archives Educators and Students features resources about primary sources, activities and training for educators and students. The Teaching With Documents section provides lesson plans by era, from 1754-present.

Teaching with Historic Places, from the National Park Service, offers lesson plans focused on transportation, immigration, and other geography topics. The Building of the Chesapeake and Ohio, for example, is designed to help middle school students learn about the role canals played in western expansion and the evolution of transportation.

Crossroads: A K-16 American History Curriculum from the Sage Colleges provides 36 units chronologically organized into 12 historical periods, each covered by three units, one each for elementary, middle, and high school students. Units include objectives, detailed lesson plans, enrichment activities, and resources.

The State Historical Society of Wisconsin offers Lesson Plans for the elementary and secondary levels.

National Geographic Xpeditions offers a wealth of geography lesson plans.

Smithsonian's History Explorere offers lesson plans by grade level and by era.

World Wise Schools from the U.S. Peace Corps provides lesson plans to help teachers integrate global education into a variety of subjects.

Math & Science

The Activities Exchange from Access Excellence includes lesson plans developed by high school biology and life science teachers on topics ranging from cell biology to botany to DNA fingerprinting. The site features The Mystery Spot with online scientific mysteries that encourage student problem-solving and inquiry and the Activities to Go collection of innovative, successful teaching strategies and activities to help students learn scientific concepts.

Science NetLinks from the American Association for the Advancement of Science features lessons for K-12 science educators.

The Exploratorium in San Francisco provides Science Snacks, hundreds of ideas for hands-on science activities and instructions for building classroom science exhibits and experiments.

The U.S. Geological Survey's USGS and Science Education provides activities and highlights, educational resources and links to many other information sources.

Art

A Lifetime of Color from the Sanford Company provides lesson plans that are tied to the national visual arts standards. Each lesson includes background information and downloadable visual resources.

Crayola Art Education provides a library of lesson plans that may be searched by grade level and by subject to enable curriculum-based art projects.

Art Junction from the University of Florida Art Education Department includes lots of creative ideas to help elementary students get started on art projects.

ArtsEdge from the Kennedy Center features lesson plans in Dance, Literary Arts, Media Arts, Music, Theater and Visual Arts.

The Incredible Art Department from ArtsWire features lesson plans that can be sorted by grade level, medium, art period and artist and subject.

KinderArt provides many simple lesson plans for younger students. This site does contain a lot of advertising.


Created 10/2005
Last updated 6/29/2011