Lesson Plans and Educational Materials

This annotated list features established, well-supplied sites for a variety of subject areas and grades.

General Curriculum Resources

Education Resource Information Center (ERIC)
Note: The ERIC Clearinghouse on Information & Technology (ERIC/IT) and the AskERIC Service have been discontinued as a result of reorganization of the ERIC program by the United States Department of Education. Most of the resources previously found on the ERIC/IT and AskERIC Web sites may be found at The Educator's Reference Desk: www.eduref.org.

Additional education resources may be found at The Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM) site (see below). While the Educator's Reference Desk Web site includes most of the resources formerly found on AskERIC, the AskERIC question answering service is not included. Try the National Library of Education's (NLE) toll-free number for your education questions: 1-800-424-1616.

The ERIC database of educational literature is available on the United States Department of Education's Web site.
www.eric.ed.gov/

Education World
Education World provides a search engine that scours educational Web sites only, offering a place where educators can find information without searching the entire Internet. Education World also offers a host of original content published on its Web site, including: lesson plans, practical information for educators, information on how to integrate technology in the classroom, and articles written by education experts; Web site reviews; teacher and principal profiles; "Wire Side Chats" with the important names in education; and employment listings.
www.educationworld.com/

Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE)
Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. FREE is a collaboration of over 35 Federal agencies that formed a working group to make available hundreds of federally supported education resources. Resources for parents, teachers, and students include teaching ideas, learning activities, photos, maps, primary documents, data, paintings, and sound recordings on thousands of topics.
www.ed.gov/free/

Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM)
The Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM), sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, is a Consortium effort to provide educators with quick and easy access to thousands of educational resources found on various federal, state, university, non-profit, and quality commercial Internet sites. Teachers, parents, librarians, administrators, and other educators can search or browse The Gateway and find thousands of high quality educational materials, including lesson plans, activities, and projects from over 300 GEM Consortium member sites. The Gateway currently contains more than 20,000 education resources. New resources are catalogued and added weekly. Use of The Gateway is free and most resources point to free materials found online.
http://thegateway.org

Interactive Dialogue with Educators from Across the State (IDEAS)
IDEAS provides educators access to high-quality, highly usable, teacher-reviewed Web-based resources for curricula, content, lesson plans, professional development and other selected resources. These resources help educators use technology to meet the Wisconsin Model Academic Standards and create the foundation for a statewide knowledge management system, but they should be useful and appropriate for teachers across the nation.
http://ideas.wisconsin.edu/

LessonPlanz.com
With more than 4,000 reviewed (and sometimes rated) plans, this resource offers search by subject and grade level. The lesson plans are printable and email-able, and include related teaching resources.
www.lessonplanz.com

Lesson Plan Search
This database, organized by subject and grade level, allows users to search more than 2500 lesson plans.
www.lessonplansearch.com/

Marco Polo
Standards-based Internet content for K-12, including reviewed links to top sites in many disciplines, professionally developed lesson plans, classroom activities, and materials. The well-organized site also features an advanced search engine.
www.marcopolosearch.org/mpsearch/basic_search.asp

New York Times Daily Lesson Plan
The Daily Lesson Plan archives contain hundreds of free lesson plans for grades 6-12 on topics including American history, current events, fine arts, geography, health, journalism, language arts, mathematics, media studies, science, and technology. You can perform a keyword search to retrieve a lesson, browse the archive by subject, or scroll down the page to view the newest lessons.
www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/index.html

PBS TeacherSource
This free Web site for preK-12 teachers is offered by the Public Broadcasting Service. You'll find over 3,500 free lesson plans, activity ideas, discussion guides and other curriculum resources, all tied to your favorite PBS television programs (though it should be noted that many resources do not require access to a video or television to use the curriculum materials). In addition to lessons and activity ideas, TeacherSource also offers monthly book and Web site reviews, best practices articles, opportunities for professional development, and a weekly e-mail newsletter about upcoming online and on-air programming. Of special interest is the site's unique "Standards Matching" feature, which allows educators to match PBS lesson plans and activity ideas to their own specific state standards documents -- a hand tool for anyone who needs to demonstrate how their lessons address state standards of learning.
www.pbs.org/teachersource/

Virtual Teachers Lounge
Based on "wiki" technology that allows any registered user to post and edit lesson plans, handouts, and other resources online, this site is designed to allow educators to work collaboratively to refine and perfect their teaching materials. Creator Rob Lucas' vision is to eventually have users "develop an extensive library of creative, finely tuned, engaging, lessons." Intrigued?
http://teacherslounge.editme.com/

Subject Specific Resources

American Memory
Maintained by the Library of Congress, American Memory is a gateway to primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States. The site offers more than 7 million digital items from more than 100 historical collections. From the main page, you can search for items across all collections or use the Collection Finder to search by broad topics, time period, place, library division, original format, or specific digital format. Each broad topic is also broken down into narrower topics. The home page also features different special collections on a rotating basis.
http://memory.loc.gov/

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
NARA is an independent Federal agency that helps to preserve United States history by overseeing the management of all Federal records. Their mission is to ensure ready access to the essential evidence that documents the rights of American citizens, the actions of Federal officials, and the national experience. NARA houses famous documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, but it also houses millions of documents, maps, photos, audio and video clips, and other media. NARA also maintains the Presidential records, personal papers, audiovisual collections, and gifts and artifacts of former Presidents.

The Digital Classroom provides materials from the National Archives and methods for teaching with primary sources. You can find reproducible primary documents, educational units correlated to national academic standards, and cross-curricular connections. National History Day resources are also found in the Digital Classroom. You can even request a videoconference for an electronic workshop for students in grades 5-12.
http://www.nara.gov/

NASA Search
If you remember a great resource you saw on NASA's Web site, but you cannot remember WHICH NASA site on which you found it, then this search engine should help you solve your problem. The NASA-wide Search Engine lets you search for material throughout the NASA Web and FTP servers, as well as Hubble Space Telescope material. The NASA Search Engine allows you to search through plain text, HTML, PDF and Word files. The online NASA documentation searched is located mainly at NASA Headquarters, Ames Research Center, Dryden Flight Research Center, Goddard Space Flight Center, Johnson Space Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Kennedy Space Center, among others.
http://search.nasa.gov/nasasearch/search/search.jsp

PE Central
PE Central is the premier Web site for health and physical education teachers, parents, and students. Its goal is to provide the latest information about developmentally appropriate physical education programs for children and youth. At PE Central you'll find scores of lesson plans that are developmentally appropriate, measured against national standards, and organized by topic and grade level. The site also includes tips to improve student motor skills and athletic performance, health lesson plans, and a checklist you can use to determine which activities are most appropriate for students in your classes.
http://www.pecentral.org/

Slavery in America
Geared toward social studies and English teachers, this site provides comprehensive resources that were previously unavailable or difficult to access, with narratives and literature that illuminate the human face of slavery. History, geography, literature, and narrative/biography sections offer essays, lesson plans, book lists, classroom activities, and other materials developed by teachers and for teachers with today's students in mind.
www.slaveryinamerica.org

Other Resources

Arts & Literature Lesson Plans -- Resources compiled by NEA.
www.nea.org/webresources/artslitlinks.html

Comprehensive Curriculum Resources -- Resources compiled by NEA.
www.nea.org/webresources/curriculumresources.html

Health, Safety, & P.E. Lesson Plans -- Resources compiled by NEA.
www.nea.org/webresources/healthlinks.html

Math Lesson Plans -- Resources compiled by NEA.
www.nea.org/webresources/mathlinks.html

Science Lesson Plans -- Resources compiled by NEA.
www.nea.org/webresources/sciencelinks.html

Special Ed and IDEA Resources -- Resources compiled by NEA.
www.nea.org/webresources/idearesources.html

Technology Resources -- Resources compiled by NEA.
www.nea.org/webresources/idearesources.html

Updated June 2006.