Lesson Plans

The Lesson Plans Page is a great website that includes many different types of lesson plans for certain subjects and topics for grades 6-12. As a future history/social studies teacher, the lesson plans available on this website are very useful. Even though it is important to create one's own lesson plans that portray their teaching styles, I believe these lesson plans are good "fall backs" if one ever gets stuck or cannot think of how to teach a certain topic. Some examples of the subjects available are listed below.
*Economics and Business
*Culture
*Geography (U.S and World)
*Government
*News and Current Events
*U.S. History

Within each of these topics, there are many options available of different lesson plans pertaining to specific topics in the subject area. For example, under government, you can find a lesson plan on How a Bill Becomes A Law. The lesson plan lists detailed instructions of an activity that can help students learn hands on how a bill becomes a law as well as the materials involved to make it happen. The website even gives suggestions to alter the activity to satisfy the "more advanced learning students" by adding some complexity to the assignment and including real life situations.
Another website that is similar to this one that is useful as well is Lesson Plans for Teachers. What is so great about this website is that not only does it include lesson plans for different subjects within social studies, but it also includes lesson plans for different subjects, different holidays, and grade levels. There are lesson plans for math, science, language arts, music, physical education, foreign language, etc. This is wonderful for those history majors who are having difficulty finding a job in their content area and decide to teach another subject they are endorsed in. In feeling not as strongly about the alternative subject, it is nice to have some lesson plans to follow to make sure you are teaching accurately on the subject level. The first website included some lesson plans for math, science, and language arts, but this website gives more options and covers more of a variety of topics in each subject. This website has lessons for Middle School and High School, which makes it easier to distinguish the difficulty required for each grade level when teaching a topic and the different activities that are appropriate for them. I thought it was pretty creative that the website includes lesson plans that include specific "holidays" such as Earth Day, Arbor Day, and Earthquake Day. Not only do these lesson plans take a day to teach the students about the history of the day but it also exposes them to information about out environment and the issues going on in the world today.
Another feature that is nice on this website is that it includes a list of lesson directories that can enhance your lessons. For example, there are a list of suggested lesson plans by the Discovery Channel for grades k-5, 6-8, and 9-12. The Discovery Channel is a reliable source and they give great suggestions for different lessons and activities to include in your classroom. I hope these websites will be useful for our future teachers and that the lesson plans will make classrooms more interesting and engaging.