Planning effective and engaging lessons is one of the most important, yet time-consuming, tasks for preschool teachers. Thankfully, there are many free printable preschool lesson plan templates available online that can help streamline your planning process. This article will guide you through finding and utilizing these free templates to plan fun and educational lessons for your preschool classroom.
An teacher online lesson planner is an invaluable tool for busy teachers looking to organize their lesson plans and teaching materials digitally. Rather than juggling physical binders or paper planners, teachers can utilize online platforms to thoughtfully map out learning units, week-by week objectives, and individual lessons. Going digital streamlines access and sharing capabilities.
Introduction to Preschool Lesson Planning
Before diving into the printable templates, let's review some preschool lesson planning basics:
Importance of Lesson Plans: Thoughtfully planned lessons help teachers stay organized, intentionally teach key skills, track student growth, and make the most of every minute.
Elements of a Lesson Plan: An effective lesson plan includes the objective, vocabulary words, materials needed, the intro/hook, step-by-step procedures, differentiation tactics, and assessment opportunities.
Preschooler Development: Understanding milestones and capabilities of 3-5 year-olds will inform age-appropriate planning. Review typical cognitive, literacy, motor, and social-emotional development.
Where to Find Free Preschool Lesson Plan Templates
Many talented teachers have created printable lesson plan templates and generously shared them online. Here are some top sites to find templates for preschool and early elementary years:
TeachersPayTeachers: The largest online open marketplace with over 2 million original teacher resources. Filter for free preschool lesson plan templates.
PreKinders: A blog and resource library with dozens of free preschool templates in various formats.
Education: Tons of templates for various subjects and grade levels, including preschool.
Happy Educator: Free editable PDF lesson plan templates for year-long planning.
Benefits of Using Preschool Lesson Plan Templates
Utilizing pre-made lesson plan templates offers many advantages:
Saves vast amounts of time compared to making plans from scratch.
Provides structure and continuity for long-term planning.
Base templates prompt you to include key plan elements.
Editable formats allow for customization of activities and objectives.
Digital storage keeps all your plans organized in one secure place.
Easily make copies, adjustments, and share lessons with colleagues.
Tips for Using Preschool Lesson Plan Templates Effectively
To maximize the usefulness of pre-made lesson plan templates, keep these tips in mind:
Preview multiple templates to find ones that best fit your needs in terms of subjects, format, level of detail, etc. Compare several options before deciding on one.
Make sure to download editable versions, not just PDFs, so that you can make adjustments. Test editing capabilities before settling on a template.
Store finalized lesson plans all in one place digitally such as Google Drive for easy searching. Use a clear naming system.
Create a master annual plan from semester to weekly views to map out units, themes, and activities year-long.
Make copies before customizing plans for future use. Repurpose activites and templates year to year.
Let’s explore two highly rated free templates and how teachers might utilize them.
Sample Preschool Lesson Plan Template 1: Weekly Overview
This landscape oriented weekly overview template from PreKinders provides an at-a-glance view of what is being taught each day across developmental domains:
[Insert Image of Sample Weekly Lesson Plan Template]
Image credit: PreKinders
A preschool teacher could use this template to:
Map out weekly themes and activities at the start of each week.
Provide parents and assistants a snapshot of the week’s lessons.
Easily share weekly plans with fellow preschool team teachers.
Track classroom happenings, changes, and notes in the bottom box.
Ensure balanced attention across literacy, math, arts, science, motor, and social-emotional.
Sample Preschool Lesson Plan Template 2: Child Care Daily Sheet
From Happy Educator, this highly customizable daily lesson plan template prints two pages per day and thoroughly outlines every part of the daily schedule.
[Insert Image of Sample Daily Lesson Plan Template]
Image credit: Happy Educator
Helpful areas of this template include:
Goals and objectives tied to early learning state standards
Materials needed lists for easy prep
Detailed activity instructions
Learning domain coding for each activity
Visual daily schedule
Attendance, notes, and assessment fields
This level of detail ensures preschool teachers intentionally teach to goals while allowing room for documentation, adjustments, reflections and more.
Conclusion and Next Steps
In conclusion, utilizing free printable preschool lesson plan templates can make planning engaging and effective lessons significantly easier with continued customization. With an arsenal of templates across subjects, weeks, days—the preschool teaching journey becomes better organized and more intentional.
Next steps include:
Browse the shared sites to bookmark go-to templates
Download both an overview and detailed template to start
Begin planning out upcoming weeks and units pulling from various templates
Consider mixing and matching elements from different templates to suit your needs
By implementing lesson plan templates, preschool teachers can spend less time reinventing the wheel and more time teaching young minds creatively. With some digital organization, these templates can provide the perfect launching pad for preschool learning fun year after year.
FAQs About Preschool Lesson Planning Templates
Q: Are free preschool lesson plan templates actually useful or just a gimmick?
A: Teacher-created lesson plan templates are incredibly useful! They distill best practices from experienced teachers to provide a strong planning foundation while still being fully customizable. Utilizing templates saves hours of work.
Q: Can I find templates aligned specifically to my state early learning standards?
A: Yes, many state-specific preschool lesson templates are available. Review template sites to filter by state standard alignments like Florida Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) or California Preschool Learning Foundations.
Q: Without a curriculum, how do I know I'm covering key preschool learning domains?
A: An effective template will incorporate balanced subject area coverage. Additionally, mapping plans annually and vertically between age groups helps ensure developmental gaps aren't missed. Referencing state early learning standards as you plan is wise too.