Lesson planning can feel overwhelming at first, but breaking it into clear sections helps you stay organized and ensures your students meet grade level learning targets. This guide walks you step by step through each section of a lesson plan, with examples of activities you can implement.
Every lesson should connect to a Common Core State Standard (CCSS) or relevant state/district learning standard. This anchors your lesson to grade-level expectations and ensures alignment with curriculum. If you need help identifying what are the common core state standards for the grade level you are working with, a wonderful, online website is Common Core Standards. Please use the following linked websites for each specific core content area:
Learning Objectives describe what students will achieve by the end of the lesson. To aid objective writing, utilize SWBAT or “Students Will be Able to…”:
Examples:
No matter what your school or you refer to them as, these quick, low-stakes activities help immediately engage students, set a focused tone, and maximize instructional time. By providing a short, purposeful task as soon as students enter the classroom, it transitions them from social mode to learning mode, reinforces prior knowledge, and previews the day’s objectives.
Examples:
Quick Writes
1. Use The New York Times: What’s Going On in This Picture? feature. Ask students to analyze a photo by answering:
2. Use Edutopia: 50 Writing Prompts for All Grade Levels
Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Activities
Temperature Checks - a quick and fun way to gauge how students are feeling emotionally and mentally at the start of the lesson. It gives students a safe space to share their mood, stress level, or energy in a simple, non-intrusive way—like using emojis, colors, a number scale, or short prompts.
Warm-ups
Great for review purposes and to gauge if any reteaching is needed.
Your goal is to grab students’ attention and begin making connections to their prior knowledge.
Examples:
This is the heart of your plan. Keep it structured, clear, and interactive.
This time is meant for students to practice implementing the new skill with teacher guidance and support.
Examples:
At this time, students will be expected to apply the new skill on their own. This allows the teacher to determine who is on route to meeting the day’s learning objective, and who needs additional support.
Examples:
Important to have an activity to wrap up the entire lesson and potentially preview what comes next. Exit tickets are particularly great to check for understanding.
Examples:
This is a thorough template that is great for new educators who are looking to build up their lesson plan writing skills.
This is a simpler template that is ideal for educators who are comfortable with lesson plan writing and just need somewhere to organize their ideas.
This is a template meant for SPED educators or those with students with IEPs in their class. The goal is to keep students’ varying needs top of mind when lesson planning.
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