Lesson Planet (TOS Review)

Lesson Planet Home Page
Lesson Planet Homeschooling Page

"Lesson Planet makes it easy for teachers and parents to search over 225,000 online lesson plans and worksheets that have been reviewed and rated by teachers."

If you've been homeschooling and online any length of time, you've probably come across this site or others like it--this one has been around since 1999. Teachers, faced with the seemingly impossible task of meeting standards and covering a myriad of content requirements, can "borrow" the creations of other teachers, along with printable worksheets, all sorted by category, age/grade specifications, etc. Did you know that today is the anniversary of the publication of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia? The Lesson Planet Calendar gives you not only a hyperlink to all its 216 lessons labelled "Isaac Newton," (including "Over the Rainbow with Isaac Newton: Students study rainbows and do an interdisciplinary assignment that includes poetry and a science experiment"), but suggests that you also try "Universal Gravitation" and "Laws of Motion." And so on.

When I click on the Homeschooling Web Guide, I see three recent/featured lesson plans covering The Story of Ruby Bridges, Spring Has Sprung, and Clash of the Titans Lesson Plans, along with options to narrow the search. If I "narrow the search" to "Canada Homeschooling," I get only two choices: "Compliments and Feelings: Students discuss compliments and feelings. They practice giving compliments to their classmates, stating how they felt when given the compliment. They create a paper plate face showing their face as they were receiving the compliment" and "Butterfly and Caterpillar: Students listen to the story "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and create their own "Very Hungry Caterpillar" book to learn the life cycle of a butterfly." I don't know what either of those has to do with Canada or homeschooling, so I'd consider that kind of a dead end.

Let's try "New to Homeschooling" instead. 44 lesson plans come up, the first three of which are "Chinese New Year Activity: Holidays, Multiculturalism, World History and Cultures: Students learn of the Chinese New Year including the legend of the twelve calendar animals, the Festival of Lanterns and the Dancing Dragons. They construct their own Chinese Lantern"; "Both Home And School On The Range, Grade Range 6th - 12th: Students investigate the notion of home-schooling and the use of technology as an instructional tool while comparing these ideas to their own school experiences. They develop and conduct a survey centering around home-schooling and technology"; and "Mission Mastermind: The goal of this lesson is for students to place the events of the 2002 servicing mission of the Hubble Space Telescope in the correct sequence."

What was that "Home and School on the Range" about? It was rated 4 out of 5 stars, so someone must have thought it useful. Turns out it was based on "teaching ideas based on New York Times content"--Lesson Planet seems to draw from different collections of lesson plans.

Where's the 1998(!) NYT article that this was based on? Oh, I found it--it's linked at the bottom of the page. Go ahead and read it--it includes an interesting interview with Mary Pride.

The objectives of this particular lesson plan are "Students will:
1. Write a journal entry appraising the purpose of education and the role of technology as a learning tool.
2. Read and discuss “On-Line Courses Have Given a New Impetus to the Home-Schooling Movement” in round-table format.
3. Develop survey questions focused on home-schooling, technology as a learning tool, and personal education experiences and views.
4. Conduct the survey, each student polling a student, a parent, and a teacher or school administrator."

And it goes on from there, with questions, questions, questions, extension activities, correlation with standards. One wonders what the public school classroom using this (if anyone did?) made of the quotes from homeschoolers!

Like any search engine, many of the choices that come up in any particular search won't be what you're looking for. The "new to homeschooling" choice selected a French lesson about a "home-school visit" (in other words, a visit to a home and a school), along with a lot of science lessons that didn't seem to offer much to someone looking for specific information on homeschooling. You might find something helpful, but you might end up at a dead end.

Many of the lesson plans, just by the nature of this sort of thing, are full of the expected public school twaddle. At least it's good for some laughs. "Rock Around the Clock Math. Grade Range: Kindergarten - 2nd. Rated 3/5 Stars. Students discuss the song "Rock Around the Clock." They dance and listen for important lessons to learn from the words in the song. They make their own clocks, using paper plates, brass fasteners, markers and play "Telling Time Bingo"." But there are things that homeschoolers and Christian parents might find interesting: a Bible Memory Verse Posters activity, a lesson plan integrating Minnesota birds and the Bible, and one for grades 6 to 12 called "Of Amulets And Scrolls. Students come to an understanding of the time period covered in the first five books of the Bible by researching and recreating ancient artifacts. They recreate artifacts that represent the people, lifestyles, and culture of people living in those times."

Final take: Is it all worth the cost of a membership, for homeschoolers who aren't required to cover all those topics and meet state standards in every lesson? I guess it depends on how badly you feel you need the information contained in these sorts of lesson plans. You can click on those last links I gave you to open the lesson plans, without being signed into Lesson Planet; they're not on the LP website, LP just finds them for you and does the work of sorting them out, ranking and rating them. For us, it wouldn't be worth it.

The cost: Lesson Planet has a 10 day free trial to allow teachers and parents to try the site with no obligation. After the free trial, membership is US$39.95/year.

For more reviews of this product, see the Review Crew home page.

Dewey's Disclaimer: We received a trial membership free for purposes of review. No other payment was made. The opinions expressed in this review are our own.