Top Five Lesson Plan Websites for K-12 Educators

Between developing their own lesson plans and grading papers, teachers can become overwhelmed with details. Time becomes a commodity, especially for those with a family at home.

To solve this struggle with time, some teachers have embraced online lesson plans, modifying them for use in their own classroom. The biggest problem for these teachers, however, is finding free, or inexpensive, quality content among the wide array of material posted online. Read below to learn more about five high quality lesson plan websites.

1. Lesson Planet claims to house over 150,000 lesson plans. Its slogan, "The Search Engine for Teachers", truly describes its function. Most of the lessons list targeted grade levels as well as a brief summary, making the search process easy. In fact, the site has an advanced keyword search feature, making it easier to find lesson plans for particular state standards.

Cost: Lesson Planet is only free for the first ten days. After that, access is currently $39.95 per year. They do offer site licenses at a discounted rate, however. The site explains that the cost eliminates the need for advertisements.

2. The Lesson Plans Page has significantly fewer lesson plans than Lesson Planet, however, it features 4,000+ lesson plans -- many more than most teachers would design in a lifetime. The search process is a little laborious, having to navigate through layers from general to specific, but overall the site is structured well by subject and topic. A teacher should have no trouble finding a relevant topic. Be prepared for a lot of scrolling, however, when browsing the content.

Cost: The Lesson Plans Page is free. It has a section for teachers to contribute more lesson plans, helping to keep the cost of the site low.

3. Education World includes more than just lesson plans, including how to incorporate technology and other teaching related concerns, but it still has quite a few lesson plans available. The site posts a "Top Ten Lesson Plans" section and lists topics by subject area.

Cost: While Education World is free, it is cluttered with busy ads. If ads do not bother the reader, then it is an excellent resource.

4. S.C.O.R.E. Language Arts Cyberguides has its pros and cons. It is structured toward the language arts within the California state standards, so it is a bit limited in scope. However, the cyberguides themselves are wonderful, incorporating Internet research and projects with various literature. There is a disclaimer on the site that some of the links may be out-dated, so be sure to double check each lesson prior to its use in the classroom.

Cost: This site is also free.

5. Awesome Library links to various resources based upon a particular subject or lesson plan topic. It is extremely easy to use and has an impressive scope. The site claims to organize over 37,000 resources, making it the ultimate education library.

Cost: Once again, this site is free, the best price in the world for teachers.

What do you think about using online lesson plan sites? Please comment below.

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