Home Schooling Resources

I found yet another website that I had not discovered before called Lesson Planet. I received a free membership for a couple of months for review and boy was I surprised….

I must admit that I am NOT a lesson plan type of person. I love lists and getting things accomplished but hate following lesson plans. It all feels so fake. I’m a parent and enjoy my relationship with my children.

Lesson Planet was a refreshing site even for those of us that don’t “do” lesson plans. Yes, there are over 150,000 lesson plans there that you can search by subject, grade and teacher rating, but there is even more. You can even search by calendar and theme too!

I would have to say that my favorite part about this site is the calendar page. You can click on any month of the year and find all kinds of ideas for lessons just by knowing things that happened each day. For example, today April 28th is the day that Isaac Newton’s first volume was  published in 1686. This could spur study about gravitation and the laws of motion. The only disadvantage to this calendar is that it is not Christian, so things like buddha’s birthday is listed too. That’s not too hard to get around though. This a great tool anyone can use!

Throughout the site there are also 24 guides that are assigned to various subject areas and grade levels. There is even one assigned for homeschoolers. She gives ideas, helps and articles that help you make the most of this site.

If you like unit studies or making lapbooks, you can find plenty of information here too.

Along with all that I have mentioned the list still goes on. There are worksheets (over 75,000) and state standards you can look up too! I was able to go in and select writing worksheets for grades 8-9 for my 14 year old daughter and found several that I printed off for her. You can also click on the “state standards” button and get all the information you need about your state guidelines for what children in each grade and subject should be familiar with for that year. I’m not into state standards either, but I thought it was an interesting feature that could come in handy some day.

Lesson Planet is free for a 10 day trial or just $39.95 for a yearly membership. Just a couple days of browsing a few minutes and you can easily see that there is plenty here for anyone to use for a long time.