Frequently Asked Questions

Lesson Planet is a member-supported search engine just for teachers that makes it easy for educators to search from over 225,000+ teacher-reviewed online lesson plans and worksheets that are correlated to state standards. Lesson Planet saves teachers valuable time by allowing them to quickly search for online lessons by keyword, grade level, overall rating, subject, theme, state standard and more. Each lesson plan has been carefully reviewed, categorized and rated by experienced, credentialed K-12 teachers. Lesson Planet also includes a suite of web-based teacher tools that allow teachers to easily create their own teacher sites, lesson plans, email newsletters and more.

2) How is Lesson Planet different from a general search engine?

Lesson Planet is a niche search engine for teachers that has been designed to help educators quickly search over 225,000+ (and growing) online lesson plans and worksheets. Unlike general search engines, which tend display a huge number of unfiltered page results, Lesson Planet displays only online lesson plans that have been reviewed, summarized and rated by credentialed K-12 teacher-reviewers. Lesson Planet, unlike general search engines, also lets teachers narrow their search using a variety of search criteria such as grade level, subject and overall rating.

3) Where do the online lesson plans come from?

Lesson Planet's teacher-reviewers are constantly combing the Internet identifying, reviewing and rating all the lesson plans that are available on the Web. Lesson Planet and its members are very grateful to the thousands of education sites large and small that have posted lesson plans online. In many ways Lesson Planet is like a searchable guidebook to online lesson plans and other online teacher resources. Lesson Planet is committed to finding and reviewing every lesson plan that is posted on the Internet. If you know of any lesson plans that Lesson Planet has not yet reviewed and linked to, please let us know by emailing support@lessonplanet.com. Thanks!

4) Who reviews the online lessons plans and how?

Lesson Planet has a team of teacher-reviewers who are all experienced, credentialed K-12 educators that have been specially trained to review, summarize and rate each online lesson plan in accordance with the Lesson Planet Review Guidelines.

Account, Membership and Billing:

1) How does the 10-Day, Full Access Free Trial work?

In order to let prospective members try out Lesson Planet, Lesson Planet has a 10-Day Free Trial that provides interested teachers FULL ACCESS to all of Lesson Planet's database and teacher tools. To sign up for a free trial simply go to the FREE TRIAL page and sign up using your credit card. You can cancel at any time, for any reason during the 10-day trial period and your credit card will not be charged. If you do not cancel, your credit card will be charged after the 10-day trial period has ended.

2) How much does Lesson Planet cost?

The standard price for a Lesson Planet Membership is only $39.95 a year. Less than 10 cents a day gains you full access to one of the most timesaving teacher resources available. Click here to see what Lesson Planet members are saying about how Lesson Planet helps them as teachers.

3) Why isn't Lesson Planet free?

Lesson Planet is an advertising free, member-supported search engine for teachers. In order to keep our pages free of advertising and provide a continually improving service to teachers, Lesson Planet charges a very reasonable annual membership fee. Created and managed by teachers, the Lesson Planet team is committed to helping teachers to find and utilize the wide variety of quality educational resources the Internet has to offer. We are constantly adding more teacher resource reviews, site features and teacher tools. Our inspiration comes from the encouraging feedback we receive from teacher members around the world (see testimonials).

4) Can more than one teacher use the same Lesson Planet membership account?

No. Lesson Planet memberships are granted on a one membership per teacher basis. Please do not share your Lesson Planet login information as it may result in your membership being revoked.

5) I want other teachers at my school to have access to Lesson Planet. Does Lesson Planet offer a group, school or district site license?

Yes. Qualified groups, schools and districts (of 10 teachers or more) can sign up for a site license and receive full access to Lesson Planet for only $19.95/year per teacher. Click here to find out more about our Site License Program or contact us at support@lessonplanet.com.

6) When will my membership renew?

Lesson Planet memberships renew automatically on an annual basis in accordance with the Terms of Service Agreement.

7) How do I cancel my 10-Day Free Trial or my annual membership renewal?

Simply log in to Lesson Planet and click on the "My Lesson Planet" link (in the upper right hand corner) to cancel your 10 Day Free Trial or to cancel the annual membership renewal of your Lesson Planet account.

8) How do I check the status of my account or update my email address or my credit card info?

Simply log in to Lesson Planet and click on the "My Lesson Planet" link (in the upper right hand corner) to check the status of your account, change or update your account email address, password or credit card information. It is especially important to keep your account email address and credit card info up to date.

Features:

1) How can I find lessons that correlate to my state's content standards?

When you search for lessons via keyword, Lesson Planet will display a list of related lessons and a link that shows how many content standards (for your state) also match your keyword search. Click on that link and the standards for your state that correlate to your keyword search will show up on a separate page.

2) How can I save selected search results?

As you browse your lesson results, simply check the box next to the lessons that you find the most interesting and want to save for quick reference in the future. Then click on the 'Save Selected Results' button at the top of each results page and the lessons that you checked will be saved as (or added to) a custom web page file that can easily be viewed as a web page at your convenience.

3) What are the Teacher Tools?

Lesson Planet members also receive full access to Lesson Planet's suite of web-based teacher tools that make it easy to build your own teacher site, write and publish online lesson plans, send a class newsletter via email and even store files online.

4) How can I subscribe to the Lesson Planet Newsletter?

When you join Lesson Planet you can choose to receive the Lesson Planet Newsletter. Emailed monthly, the Lesson Planet Newsletter provides you with our editor's top online lesson picks by subject, grade level, theme and calendar as well as the latest about new Lesson Planet features and 'how to' tips.

5) What is 'Advance Search'?

Lesson Planet's 'Advanced Search' feature provides numerous ways for you to customize and narrow your search criteria. Advance Search allows you to search by criteria such as by grade range, overall rating, subject, class design, teaching method, lesson duration, technology used and more! You can even save your custom search criteria using the 'Save Search Criteria' tool.

6) How do I suggest lesson plans that are not yet listed in Lesson Planet?

Lesson Planet is committed to finding and reviewing every lesson plan that is posted on the Web. If you know of any lesson plans that have not yet been reviewed and listed in Lesson Planet, please let us know by emailing us at support@lessonplanet.com. If the lessons meet our review guidelines our teacher reviewers will review the lessons and add them to Lesson Planet. Thanks for helping us make Lesson Planet better!

7) How do I submit my lesson plans to Lesson Planet?

Lesson Planet makes it easy for you to share your lesson plans with thousands of other teachers! If you have one or more original lesson plan(s) and you would like to share them with other teachers via Lesson Planet, all you need to do is enter your lesson into our LessonMaker tool and then click 'Publish' to submit the lesson to Lesson Planet for review. Thanks for your generosity!

8) How can I share with my colleagues my experience implementing or adapting an online lesson plan listed on Lesson Planet?

If you have implemented or adapted an online lesson plan listed on Lesson Planet it is easy to help other teachers by briefly adding your own review and rating of that lesson plan. Simply click on the 'Review & Rate this Lesson' link shown after each lesson description and share with your colleagues the successes and/or frustrations you experienced implementing or adapting that lesson plan. Once you review a lesson, your review and rating will appear as a linked number after Lesson Planet's description of the lesson. Please only review and rate lessons that you have actually implemented or adapted in the classroom. Thanks for contributing!

Login and Access:

1) I am having trouble logging in, what should I do?

If you are having trouble logging in then it is most likely that the username and/or password you typed in does not match the username and/or password in our system for your account. To confirm your password try the 'Forgot Password' link described below. Please note that all Lesson Planet usernames and passwords are not case sensitive. It also could be that your account has expired. If you are sure you are entering the correct username and password and are still having difficulty logging in, please contact our support team at support@lessonplanet.com.

2) I cannot remember my username and/or password?

If you cannot remember your Lesson Planet username and/or password, click on the 'Forgot Password?' link on the login page and enter your email address then press the 'Send' button. If your current email is the email address that you most recently provided Lesson Planet then you will be emailed your username and password immediately. If the email we have on file for your account is not the same as your current, then our system will not recognize that newer email and our system cannot email you your username and password. If our system does not recognize the email you are providing it is most likely not the same email you sign up with and you should email us at support@lessonplanet.com. Note: It is important to keep your account information (current email, credit card info, etc.) up to date. It is easy to update or change your account info, simply click on the 'Account' link within Lesson Planet and update your new information.

3) When does my Lesson Planet membership renew?

You can quickly check your membership status by logging into Lesson Planet and clicking on the 'Account' link in the upper right hand corner of the page.

4) What do I do if I can't open a lesson plan?

Lesson Planet links to thousands of different web sites all over the web that have posted lesson plans. Most of these lessons show up in your web browser as a standard 'HTML' web page. All you have to do is click on the link to the lesson and it shows up as a web page. However, some lesson plan sites, whose lessons are listed in Lesson Planet, provide their lesson plans as 'PDF' files only. In order to open a PDF file you need to have the free PDF opening application called Adobe Reader (if you do not have it you can click here to download Adobe Reader for free). Usually, if a member is having trouble clicking on a lesson link and 'opening' a lesson plan, it is because the lesson plan is a PDF and needs to be opened using Adobe Reader. Some sites make their lessons accessible as both HTML and PDF files. A few lesson plan sites make their lesson plans available as Microsoft Word documents only. In this case you need to have Microsoft Word loaded on your computer to open the lesson plan. It is also possible that a lesson plan site that used to be free has recently changed and now requires visitors to become members (free or fee) before being allowed access to their lessons. If you come across a lesson site that now requires a membership to the lesson plan you click on please let us know by emailing support@lessonplanet.com.

5) How do I report a problem link?

When utilizing Lesson Planet if you come across a problem link please let us know by emailing support@lessonplanet.com. A 'problem' link could be anything from a site that is temporarily down, has changed to a new web address or is no longer on the web at all. The web can change quickly and if you come across a link on Lesson Planet that leads to a site or page that is 'inappropriate' as an educational resource, please let us know as soon as possible by emailing support@lessonplanet.com.