Laura Adams
SLM 521
June 2002
Elective 8 -
Lesson Plans
Lesson plans are the key to effective
teaching. Creating valuable, detailed lesson
plans is a time consuming effort.
Teachers create and recreate lesson plans on the same topics for the
same age students every day. Thankfully,
the internet provides many useful resources for finding lesson plans created by
others. Listed below are several sites I have found that provide lesson plans
tailored to the lower elementary grades through some search mechanism. I have not used any of the plans from these
sites but I foresee using these as a starting point, to get ideas and then
modifying them to meet the needs of my students. I am sure as I begin to teach and use these
resources this list will change to reflect what has worked for me.
The Gateway to Educational Materials – This
outstanding site is sponsored by the US Department of Education. The intention of this initiative is to
provide educators a more organized and accessible database in which to search
for internet based lesson plans, curriculum units and other educational
materials. It is a consortium effort to
create a one-stop shop for educators and currently has over 24,000 records. The
site provides an easy to use, detailed search by subject, keyword or a general
search. It also has an option to find
only resources that are free. Last
visited June 2002. http://www.thegateway.org/
AskERIC –This site contains lesson
plans that have been written by teachers and submitted to the Educational
Resources Information Center (ERIC). Each
plan must meet the selection criteria which is accessible from the site. The site allows you to browse by subject or
search using keywords and selecting grade level. Last visited June 2002. http://askeric.org/Virtual/Lessons/
LessonPlansPage –This site was
created by the students and faculty at the
Teachers.Net - This also has options to
search either by subject or grade. It is
not as easy as some of the other sites to search for a particular grade and
subject, you must type both words i.e. math and elementary, instead of a
selection box as is available from other sites.
There is some advertising but it is limited. Last visited June 2002. http://www.teachers.net/
LessonPlanz -
LessonPlanz offers specific lesson plans and resources for lower elementary
grades K-2. Areas of information include
Health and Nutrition, Language Arts, Science, Physical Education, etc. Last visited June 2002. http://lessonplanz.com/lowerelementary.shtml
ProTeacher – ProTeacher is a database
designed for grades K-6. It provides
searching for lesson plans within specific areas of interest, through teaching
practices or directly within a lesson plan search tool. I have found this site to be useful for a lot
of information but at times the pop-up advertising seems to occur with each
click of the mouse, which can be trying.
Last visited June 2002. http://www.proteacher.com/
The Teachers Guide – This site was
created by a teacher and contains a variety of information. The lesson plans are searchable by subject
and then divided by level from the subject page. There are no pop-up ads! I like the book activities section. Last visited June 2002. http://www.theteachersguide.com/