For a passionate educator, imparting lessons can become an all-consuming affair. You begin teaching, blink once, and the class is over—but you aren’t even close to finishing your lesson! Now you have to restructure your next class to wrap up the lecture or maybe plan a recap so your students can easily pick up where you left off.
Poor organization and time management can ruin a lesson, no matter how captivating the topic is. That’s why the best teachers rely on lesson plans to organize topics, assignments, and activities on a class-by-class basis. Since tailoring lesson plans can be tricky, using templates is always a good idea.
In this article, we’ll discuss the top 10 lesson planning templates for turning any curriculum into engaging and meaningful sessions for students. 🧑🏫
10 Paid and Free Lesson Plan Templates for Teachers & Educators
- What Is a Lesson Plan Template?
- 10 High-Quality Lesson Plan Templates for Inspired Teaching
- 1. ClickUp Syllabus Planning Template
- 2. ClickUp College Lesson Plan Template
- 3. ClickUp Class Planning Template
- 4. ClickUp Classroom Management Plan Template
- 5. ClickUp Teacher Action Plan Template
- 6. ClickUp Classroom Schedule Template
- 7. ClickUp Special Education Classroom Schedule Template
- 8. Minimalist Lesson Plan PDF by Visme
- 9. 5-Minute Lesson Plan Word Template by TeacherPlanet
- 10. Creative Curriculum Lesson Plan Template by Pumble
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Is a Lesson Plan Template?
Lesson planning templates are essential tools in education as they help keep your classes on the right course. Building one from scratch can be tricky, though, especially if you have other pressing duties like marking papers and attending meetings.
Luckily, you can take a shortcut with lesson plan templates.
The template provides the framework for creating detailed, easy-to-follow plans based on your objectives or prior knowledge. It offers premade sections for visualizing the topic’s flow and teaching timeline alongside relevant resources and assignments.
Most available templates can outline your class structure, paying special attention to:
- Teaching and learning activities within a prescribed time period
- Necessary class materials
- Learning outcomes
- Assessment methods to measure progress
With a quality template, you can keep your classes lively and engaging, set an anticipatory mood for students, and provide a referential tool for other teachers who join in. 😍
How to choose the right lesson plan template
You can find thousands of lesson plan templates online, but how do you choose the right one? Here are some noteworthy characteristics to watch out for:
- Flexibility: The right template can be used for various subjects and grade levels. It should adapt to different teaching styles and pedagogical methods
- Standard sections: It should help you align your lessons with relevant education standards. See if it accommodates sections like objectives and teaching materials
- Timeline planning: It should allow for allocating specific time windows to concepts within a topic while leaving some leeway for adjustments (think daily or weekly lesson plan format)
- Collaboration options: If you’re creating lesson plans with other teachers, researchers, or educators, collaboration features like digital whiteboards, real-time editing, comment threads, and note-taking are a must
- Writing assistants: This isn’t a must, but it’s nice to have for efficiency. Some template providers offer AI-powered writing assistants to help you generate a comprehensive lesson plan for a variety of subjects
Summarize this article for me please10 High-Quality Lesson Plan Templates for Inspired Teaching
We’ve researched hundreds of lesson plan templates and handpicked the top 10 that offer the most functionality, created by reputable providers like ClickUp and TeacherPlanet. Use them to craft engaging and easy-to-follow plans in no time! ✨
1. ClickUp Syllabus Planning Template
Creating a syllabus isn’t exactly a walk in the park—you must assess learning needs, find lecture resources, and coordinate your efforts within a specific time frame. The ClickUp Syllabus Planning Template is your perfect tool for all teaching and lesson planning activities!
This template helps you lay out the entire course and provides students with a clear and consistent learning structure. Visualize lesson flows and timelines with multiple views and set trackable progress metrics for each semester.
Start with the All Lists view and define the subject(s) involved. Develop your syllabus by adding a particular lesson or lesson activities, various projects, and tests in the form of listed tasks.
For example, if you teach English and have 12 classes a semester, you can create 12 tasks for each. As far as assessments are concerned, you can schedule tests or projects and connect them to your tasks (classes) for a clear course overview.
For every task, you get five Custom Fields by default—Assignee, Due Date, Priority, Printouts, and Topics. Customize them and add dropdown lists, progress bars, or files to make your list as visually comprehensive as possible.
Other views include:
- Board: Turns your tasks into cards and sorts them based on their status
- Calendar: Visualizes your tasks in calendar form (ideal for a weekly lesson plan)
- Timeline: Represents your tasks by day, week, or month
We recommend using ClickUp Gantt Charts to outline and schedule your syllabus with greater clarity. ✏️
2. ClickUp College Lesson Plan Template
Need a tool to create and customize college lesson plans, organize materials, track due dates and progress, and nurture students? The ClickUp College Lesson Plan Template offers everything you’re looking for and more!
Using this template is easy and intuitive—start by adding lessons or courses to the Lesson Plan view. Then, use Custom Fields to define major course attributes, such as Grade, Structure of Lesson, Objectives, Evaluation Form, and Detailed Lesson Plan.
Design your free lesson plan templates with precision using the ADDIE Phase view (ADDIE is an acronym for Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation). This is a Kanban board displaying tasks as cards sorted according to status.
This template is easily shareable, so you can send it to your coworkers and superiors for review.
While it’s primarily intended for educators, it can be used by students looking to organize their classes and get Reminders for important dates. It can be particularly useful for college students following the framework of SMART goals, namely:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
You can use Milestones in ClickUp to set and track prime course objectives and progress points.
3. ClickUp Class Planning Template
Planning a class is like putting puzzle pieces together—you must figure out how to connect different lesson elements to create a productive and engaging experience. 🧩
The ClickUp Class Planning Template helps you organize individual classes and populate them with carefully planned tasks and activities—think of it as a class-wise outliner tool or a daily planner. The template offers daily and weekly views to define learning goals.
Let’s say you’re teaching English and want to dedicate a class to children’s literature. Just download the template and add the class name and date to create tasks for every lesson you want to cover (for example, early children’s literature, famous authors, and influential work).
The due date will be the date of your class. Configure Custom Fields to attach teaching materials, track progress, or add notes. As you hold your class, you can keep the template open on your laptop and cross off tasks for easier organization.
At the end of the class, you may want to assign prep work—in that case, use the Assignment Submissions List to send a ClickUp Form for submitting tasks to your students. Track and grade homework with statuses like To Do, Fail, and Pass. 🏁
4. ClickUp Classroom Management Plan Template
A classroom is a sacred space for students to learn and grow, so keeping its vibe nurturing and respectful is crucial. The ClickUp Classroom Management Plan Template can be your centralized hub for monitoring student behavior and all class-related activities. Keep students learning with effective lesson planning to manage everything from schedules to upcoming events, tests, and even field trips. 🏞️
This template is all about holistic classroom management. It boasts the following eight Custom Fields to visualize vital information about your teaching space:
- Class Section
- Course
- Course Teacher
- Objective
- Seating Chart
- Classroom Procedures Link
- Class Advisor
- Lesson Summary
The template comes with a built-in Class Calendar and Gantt Chart to make scheduling easier. You can also set the tone about expected classroom behavior and basic decorum. Use ClickUp Docs to outline a set of rules and expectations you want to be upheld during every class.
Use ClickUp Goals to set appropriate penalties and rewards to encourage good behavior. You can share the template with parents, administrators, and other stakeholders invested in student growth.
5. ClickUp Teacher Action Plan Template
Teaching is much more than simply walking into a classroom and discussing a topic. It requires meticulous organization skills—and the ClickUp Teacher Action Plan Template can help with that.
The lesson planning template is perfect for building and implementing a sensible action plan encompassing components like teaching materials, tasks, and resources for a target class size. You can also provide contextual details about timetables and feedback measures to be followed.
Navigate your action plan using multiple views. The Action Steps view helps you define your initiative and create a checklist of tasks for completion. For example, suppose you want to organize a class field trip. In that case, you’ll create tasks like getting consent from parents, calling transportation companies, and arranging meals.
The Goals view is a Kanban board displaying your tasks as cards, and you can use ClickUp’s drag-and-drop tool to move them around. The Timeline view shows your cards in a calendar, arranged by the day, week, or month.
If your action plan requires input from parents or colleagues, just create and assign tasks to the relevant people. Set due dates, priority tags, and status for each task.
6. ClickUp Classroom Schedule Template
The ClickUp Classroom Schedule Template is a must-have for always-hustling teachers. It’s essentially a well-structured, centralized hub for storing attendance data, assignments, lesson plans, and everything in between.
Make the most of this template by leveraging its three major views:
- Class Schedule view: A weekly calendar where you can create tasks representing your daily activities, classes, and plans. You can change the display to oversee tasks for a day, four days, or a month
- Activities view: A List view of your tasks sorted by due dates. Use Custom Fields to add details like Instructor, Room, Category, and Linked Docs
- Subject Notes view: ClickUp Docs for every subject (or plan or activity). Use them to store additional info about your tasks and access it anytime
Whether you want to organize your workdays or manage classroom availability at your school, this template can become your best friend. It’s also an excellent option for collaboration—add other teachers to the lesson plan and manage your lessons and classrooms together, share materials, and discuss how to improve your classes. 🥰
7. ClickUp Special Education Classroom Schedule Template
Special education classes require extra effort—besides the usual activities, you may have to consider equipment availability, individualized education plans (IEPs), and student inclusion. Plus, you often need to coordinate with parents or guardians for scheduling logistics.
The ClickUp Special Education Classroom Schedule Template lets you manage your special ed classes in a jiff. It enables visualizing subjects on a shared calendar, complete with instructions and important notes for coworkers, students, and parents.
To create a calendar, start with the Class Schedule view. Configure and add the necessary deets for upcoming activities, classes, and assignments. Set the duration for every entry and use colors to differentiate between activity types.
The All Classes/Activities view lists your activities according to their due date, letting you prioritize and maintain complete control over your schedule. On the other hand, the Special Education Class Notes view provides room for capturing extra info about your classes and students, which you can share with parents, colleagues, and admins in a few clicks.
The template is intended for educators, but parents can also use it to stay on top of their child’s schedule.
8. Minimalist Lesson Plan PDF by Visme
Want to create a lesson plan but don’t need templates with bells and whistles? Check out the Minimalist Lesson Plan Template by Visme.
This one-page ;lesson plan template is divided into four sections:
- Objectives and Goals
- Activities
- Assessment
- Notes
Under each section, you get space to outline your lesson plans. Break down your lessons into activities and tasks, describe how you’ll assess students, and define big-picture learning outcomes.
The template is as customizable as it gets—you can change colors and fonts, add charts and graphs, and attach photos to personalize your lesson plans.
Download the template as a PDF, JPG, or PNG file or share it with coworkers, students, or parents straight from the online editor.
9. 5-Minute Lesson Plan Word Template by TeacherPlanet
If you enjoy out-of-the-box options and like to experiment with your lesson plans, the 5-Minute Lesson Plan Word Template by TeacherPlanet is the way to go!
This template distributes your lesson plan across boxed chunks, with each section highlighting a specific aspect of your class. Your first step is defining the lesson’s title, learning objectives, and keywords. Then, you move on to the Learning Episodes sections.
You can split your core lesson plan into three parts—Starter, Main, and Plenary. In the Starter section, you suggest an intro and warm-up exercises for your students. The Main part covers the core content. The Plenary section lets you recapitulate the primary takeaways.
This template also offers room for estimating engagement and AFL (assessment for learning). Make use of the Differentiation section to tailor lessons to the individual needs of a student/student group.
Besides the actual lesson plan, this template comes with a lesson evaluation document, where you can note down your review after teaching the class and establish future targets.
10. Creative Curriculum Lesson Plan Template by Pumble
Want to engage your students in fun activities and help them develop creative thinking skills? The Creative Curriculum Lesson Plan Template by Pumble provides the perfect foundation for building students’ self-esteem through innovative teamwork!
This easy-to-use template has a universal structure that helps you divide your lesson into several parts—Group Time, Story Time, Special Activities, Small Group Activities/Individual Planning, and Additional Notes.
Each section has to-do lists of activities that align with the lesson’s goals. For example, if you’re an acting coach, you can put activities like “improv games” and “physical theater exercises” under “Group Time.”
The entries can be as general or detailed as you’d like—create unique roadmaps for your teaching goals one activity at a time. Once you’re done, record your thoughts or extra instructions in the Additional Notes section.
Summarize this article for me pleasePlan Your Work, Work Your Plan with the Best Lesson Plan Templates
Teachers are superheroes—they’re juggling tasks, lesson plans, and attendance sheets, tracking student progress, and even doing administrative tasks.
It’s a burnout-prone job, and our listed lesson plan templates can definitely help reduce the overwhelm. In fact, we have many other tools at ClickUp that can simplify your daily tasks. Take ClickUp AI, for instance.
Not sure how to put your grand teaching ideas into words? With ClickUp AI, you get an innovative writing assistant to generate lesson plans and subject summaries on the fly!
You can also explore ClickUp’s template library—a one-stop solution containing over 1,000 templates for almost any activity you can think of. 🧞
Everything you need to stay organized and get work done.
