If you are looking for ideas to help you streamline your preschool planning, you’ve come to the right place! Our FREE preschool lesson plan template written out in this post will help you plan with ease and confidence, with just a few easy steps.
Whether you prefer to plan day by day, a week at a time, or the whole year at once, having a plan helps keep your lessons focused and intentional on what your students need.
Preschool Lesson Plans Template
There are many ways to go about writing preschool lesson plans, and chances are that any preschool teacher will try out a few different approaches before settling on one. Lesson planning can be time-consuming, so finding an approach that works is important because children’s education depends on well-thought-out lesson plans with excellent execution.
Whether you use weekly planning, monthly plans, or unit-based focus, having a developmentally appropriate scope and sequence that was carefully developed is a valuable tool to help keep you and your students on track. A scope and sequence is a list of monthly goals and objectives that build upon one another to ensure you reach the big goals by the end of the school year.
If you are looking for preschool lesson plans that have been carefully crafted, vetted, and well-loved, check out our very own Preschool Curriculum. It has everything you need to teach your preschoolers literacy and math in a fun and engaging way, without all the boring worksheets!
Or if you are looking for specific lesson plans, check out our list of awesome plans below.
FAQ About Designing a Lesson Plans Template
Purposeful planning starts with student objectives and goals for the lesson. Preschool lesson plans should also plan for engaging learning activities, music, movement, and opportunities for students to interact with each other. Young children have short attention spans so make sure to plan for brief lessons full of fun!
Your preschool lesson plans should include purpose and objectives, materials needed, a brief summary of the lesson, student choice activities, and assessment ideas. Note that preschool assessments can be as simple as observation or conversation at this early age.
You’ve come to the right place! You’ll find our entire collection of FREE Learn at Home Lesson plans here as well as loads of useful tips, tricks, and activity ideas on our blog. You can find all my lesson planning resources here.
Follow This Lesson Planning Process
There is a lot to consider when planning out your preschool day, week, month, or year. Preschool planning can feel cumbersome since there is a lot to consider when planning for early childhood skills – free play, small groups, structured circle time, social skills, outside play, art & sensory time, academics, dramatic play, etc… the list can feel endless!
Having a scope and sequence planned out will save you time and energy and ensure that your plans are guiding your students to build their skills and knowledge as the year progresses. These five helpful preschool lesson planning tips are essential for knocking off some time as you plan smarter.
1. Identify Purpose
If a lesson or activity is going to be included, it needs to have a specific purpose within the scope and sequence of skills. When choosing an activity to include in your lesson plans, ask yourself what skills it targets. And remember that social and emotional skills, most often practiced through play, are of huge value to the development of preschoolers, and it’s beneficial to write down examples of how to help your preschoolers practice and resolve conflicts.
2. Keep Activities Simple
Chances are that if you have to write out preschool activities in paragraphs of details, you’ve chosen the wrong activity. Don’t underestimate the value of a simple activity. If preschoolers need something more complex, they will show you through their play, however, a single activity still shouldn’t take pages to write up.
Remember, that these are your own personal plans so follow your own intuition on how much or how little you need to write down. Personally, if it is a new activity, I may write a bit more so that I have that information stored for the next year when I consider what activities went well and I would like to use again. I also go back and star the activities that were a class favorite and add in additional details if needed.
3. Plan Around Student Interest
Let’s face it, if the children aren’t interested, the unit can be a wash and learning time can be lost. When planning, choose preschool themes that are of high interest to the children in your class, and also consider how favorite activities can be incorporated into the theme, too. Kids go crazy for a certain song or book? Consider transferring that into the next theme and ask for student input on projects, activities, and ideas.
4. Choose an Approach
Play-based or skills-based? Teacher-directed or child-led? Or a mix of everything? You will most likely find that your approach will vary based on the objective, and that is ok. The important thing to remember is to choose an approach that is appropriate and engaging for young learners.
No need to get weighed down with labels, just remember that preschoolers are full-body learners… they learn with their eyes (visual) and their ears (musically) as well as with their hands.
5. Write it Down
Use a lesson plan template for preschool to record your ideas for lessons. You can add as much or as little detail as you want, but be sure it gets written down, even if it is just a list. You’ll thank me.
Organizing yourself is a time-saver in the long run too! Not to mention, keeping an organized plan stores your most-loved activities and provides an opportunity to reflect the upcoming year for your next set of students. A preschool lesson plan template is a must!
Additional Resources
Snag our preschool schedules guidebook! It’s an 18-page e-book that’ll teach you everything you need to create a preschool schedule that will maximize student learning.
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I am an educator, book enthusiast, and a stay at home momma to two precious and long-awaited littles. My degree is in Early Childhood Education and Curriculum and Instruction and I have spent the last 15 years working with young children. I feel very fortunate to have this time to watch my babies grow and I can’t wait to share my passion for learning and reading with you!
