30 Lesson Plan Examples for Every Grade Level and Subject
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Lesson planning: Most teachers either love it or hate it. Either way, it’s something every teacher has to spend at least some time doing, so it’s worth learning to do it well. We’ve gathered this collection of lesson plan examples to offer inspiration for every subject and grade level. Whether you’re looking for a daily lesson plan example for elementary or a detailed sample lesson plan for high school, you’ll find them all here!
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Lesson Plan Templates
Take a look at our roundup of lesson plan examples for inspiration, then grab this bundle with five fully customizable templates to make your own lesson planning easier!
How To Write a Lesson Plan in 5 Simple Steps
OK, we’re not saying it’s necessarily easy to create lesson plans. Coming up with the ideas, the activities, the assessments—all of that takes time and dedication. But writing them down can actually be the easy part! Follow these lesson-planning steps to capture everything you need to know. (Don’t forget to grab our free printables to make the whole process a snap!)
1. Write a clear learning objective
Learning objectives should be specific and measurable, often following the SMART goal format. They often align with Common Core or other learning standards. Once you’ve set your objective, everything else in your lesson plan should support that goal. Find tips for writing learning objectives here.
2. List your materials and resources
List any items you’ll need, such as worksheets or handouts, school supplies, etc. Including a detailed list here will help you make sure you’re ready to teach, with everything close at hand. Include things like:
Printables: Handouts, worksheets, exit tickets, etc.
Visual Aids: Slideshows, anchor charts, etc.
Resources: Books, videos, website links, etc.
Materials: Art supplies, lab equipment, etc.
Prep: Seating arrangements, activity setup, etc.
3. Lay out the lesson structure and activities
This is usually the longest section, where you’ll lay out what the lesson and its activities look like. Some teachers write these in great detail. Others include just an overview to help them plan. Looking at the lesson plan example ideas here will help you decide what works best for you.
Generally, this section usually includes:
Introduction: How will you get things started? Try to find a way to grab students’ interest right from the beginning.
Direct Instruction: Provide information and demonstrate new skills using a variety of resources.
Guided Practice: Help students try the new skills with gradually decreasing support.
Independent Practice: Provide opportunities for students to try skills or test their knowledge on their own, with immediate feedback as needed.
Wrap-Up: Draw things to a close, emphasizing important points and laying out any next steps like homework or other assignments.
Describe how you’ll vary the level of difficulty for students at all levels. How will you accommodate those who find the material more difficult, and how will you challenge those who breeze right through? Learn more about how to differentiate your lesson here.
With those guidelines in mind, take a closer look at a variety of lesson plan examples in action, then start creating your own!
Preschool Lesson Plan Examples
Some people think preschool is just playtime, but pre-K teachers know better! Here are some of the ways preschool teachers plan for their lessons.
Venngage
Weekly Lesson Plan
Weekly preschool lesson planning helps you plan each day and ensure you’re tackling all the most important skills.
If you’re focusing on a new letter of the alphabet each week, try lesson planning like this. You can see the week at a glance, including all the materials and books you’ll need.
Since elementary teachers tackle multiple subjects every day, their lesson plans might look like a general overview. Or they may prepare more detailed lesson plans for each topic to help them stay on track. The choice is up to you.
Mrs. Jones’ Creation Station
Weekly Overview Lesson Plan
Don’t be afraid to write out your lesson plans by hand! A side-by-side setup like this lets you see a whole week at once. We love the use of color to highlight special things like fire drills.
Planning a whole year may seem daunting, but it can show you where you’re going to need to stretch a unit and where you can circle back and review. Mrs. D from Mrs. D’s Corner has ideas on how to structure a yearlong lesson plan using Google Sheets.
Tunstall’s Teaching
Guided Math Lesson Plan
This example on adding three numbers together can be altered to fit any math lesson plan.
Lesson planning for special education looks different than general classroom lessons in that the lessons have to cover specific IEP goals and include lots and lots of progress monitoring. The Bender Bunch starts each lesson with independent work (read: IEP practice) and then heads into mini-lessons and group work.
Interactive read-alouds take some careful planning. The Colorful Apple explains how to choose a book, get to know it, and get ready to teach it. Once you’re in the book, sticky notes may be the best lesson-planning tool you have for marking questions and vocabulary words you want to point out to students.
Mrs. Jones’s Class
Social Studies Lesson Plan
Including images of your anchor charts is a great idea. That way, you can pull one out and have it ready to go in advance.
The 5Es stand for Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Elaborate, and Evaluate. This type of lesson planning can be helpful for students as they work through each of the 5Es related to the topic you’re studying.
At the middle and high school levels, teachers often need more detailed plans for each class, which they may teach multiple times a day. Here are some examples to try.
Busy Miss Beebe
Google Sheets Lesson Plans
Google Sheets (or Excel) is terrific for lesson planning! Create a new tab for each week, unit, or class.
Some people really prefer to write things out by hand, highlighting important parts and making notes as they go. You can always convert this kind of plan to a digital format later if you need to.
This example shows how you can plan out a week’s worth of lessons at once and see the entire week all in one spot. This example is for history, but you could use this for math, ELA, or social studies too.
5E lesson plans (Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Elaborate, Evaluate) are great for middle and high school as well. This example is for science, but you can use the 5E structure across all lessons.
At some point, you’ll know what students are doing each day, you’ll just need some reminders for questions to ask and key points to cover. The nice thing about using sticky notes for lesson planning is if you get ahead or behind schedule, you can move the entire sticky-note lesson to another day. (Find more ways to use sticky notes in the classroom here.)
If your school uses backwards planning, you’ll be thinking about the outcome first and working back from there (rather than forward from an activity or task). Backwards planning lesson plans are intensive, but they’re also something you can use over and over, modifying them slightly for each group of students you have.
This kind of lesson planning isn’t for everyone, but the extreme simplicity works well for some. Describe what students will learn, how they will learn it, and how they’ll demonstrate their knowledge.
