George Lucas Educational Foundation
Edutopia

Lesson Plans

Want the nuts and bolts of how other teachers are presenting material? Find Edutopia-curated downloadable and linked resources here.

  • 5 Home Learning Experiences for the Elementary Grades 

    Activities that incorporate speaking and listening, reading and writing, math, music, science, art, and drama—and are parent-friendly.
    Justine Bruyère

  • Deepening Learning With Understanding by Design

    Learners benefit when teachers intentionally plan their units backward—starting with the desired outcome.

  • Cultivating Literacy Skills With Interactive Fiction

    This lesson plan gives students practice with coding—no prior experience needed—and fosters literacy skills like plotting and proofreading.
    Nicholas Provenzano

  • 5 Highly Effective Teaching Practices

    We teachers are always looking to innovate, so, yes, it's essential that we try new things to add to our pedagogical bag of tricks. But it's important to focus on purpose and intentionality -- and not on quantity. So what really matters more than "always trying something new" is the reason behind why we do what we do.
    Rebecca Alber

  • 22 Powerful Closure Activities

    Quick activities that can be used to check for understanding or emphasize key information at the end of a lesson.
    Todd Finley

  • 5 Powerful Questions Teachers Can Ask Students

    Many would agree that for inquiry to be alive and well in a classroom that, amongst other things, the teacher needs to be expert at asking strategic questions. With that in mind, if you are a new teacher or perhaps not so new but know that question-asking is an area where you'd like to grow, start tomorrow with these five ideas.
    Rebecca Alber

  • Kindness: A Lesson Plan

    Classroom activities and resources for developing a vital character trait.
    Rebecca Alber

  • Breaking the Ice With Student-Made Videos

    Combining the six-word memoir with a film containing six shots gives students a way to introduce themselves at the beginning of the year.
    Marcos Cortez

  • The Great Gingerbread House Project

    Keeping fourth graders engaged in math in the run-up to winter break is easier with this sweet project.
    Jeannie Curtis

  • Bell Ringer Exercises

    Because of pressure to teach bell-to-bell, many classrooms now start with bell work—short exercises that students complete while the instructor handles attendance and other administrative chores. I’ve collected several creative, practical, and entertaining exercises that can function as bell ringers or sponge activities.
    Todd Finley

  • 22 Simple Ideas for Harnessing Creativity in the Elementary Classroom

    Look through the door of one classroom and you might see the students hunched over, not engaged, even frowning. Look through the door of another classroom, and you might see a room full of lively students, eager, engaged and participating. What is the second teacher doing that the first one isn't? He or she is using creativity in that classroom.
    Trisha Riche

  • Creative Ways to Grade and Provide Feedback for Students

    Students need feedback often and creating a system by rubber stamping work can provide visible and immediate proof of student progress.
    Ben Johnson

  • Building Staff Rapport With Flash Lessons

    A hands-on administrator asks teachers to become students for a class period and, at his prompting, model trust, academic risk taking, and camaraderie.
    Brian Kulak

  • Designing Science Inquiry: Claim + Evidence + Reasoning = Explanation

    The Claim, Evidence, Reasoning framework is a scaffolded way to teach the scientific method.
    Eric Brunsell

  • New Teachers: Lesson and Curriculum Planning

    A collection of curriculum-planning tips, guidance, and other resources to help new teachers plan effective activities, lessons, and units.