Monday, May 10, 2010

TOS Crew Review: Lesson Planet




As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew I was given a short term membership to Lesson Planet for review.

Lesson Planet is an online resource for teachers for lesson plans of all kinds. You can find articles, lessons, and worksheets related to almost any subject area you would be teaching. You can also sort and file the lessons you like so that you can revisit them later.

The site has easy access to standards which is clever for those who need them. You can look up lessons by subject area, theme, and the calendar (which correlates with the holidays and events on the calendar).

The cost for membership is $39.95 a year. There is a site license fee as well. If you have five teachers participating, then the cost is $29.95 a teacher.

A few highlights I found on the site are:
While I think this site would have been super when I was a classroom teacher, I'm not sure I would use it much as a homeschooler. When I was a teacher, I would have been able to pay for it too! As it is, with a limited amount of funds going to homeschooling on a one income budget, I would have to pass.

Great idea. Fun to be able to have all the resources in one spot. Not something that would be terribly useful as a homeschooler. I don't need a list of objectives and a "set" - if you have never been a classroom teacher, then you are likely not familiar with the formal process of lesson planning. These lessons have it.

Since we are doing a science unit right now, I went ahead and looked up taxonomy and classification to find some lesson plans (not that I needed them...I taught that stuff for years in the classroom) and what I found were a lot of broken links. Now you can report the link issues easily it appears and that is the nature of the internet which is constantly changing, but annoying just the same if I'm paying the fee and come up emptied handed on the lessons that seem to match my needs the most!

If you want to try it out, they offer a ten day free trial. See for yourself what you think.





3 comments:

Mick Hunt said...

Hi.
thanks for your blog quoting the fee at lessonplanet. It's hard to find on the site...makes me a little nervous..!
I'm a community teacher, in literacy.
Please may I ask what is meant by site licence fee? Is that so a school (funded) can use the plans outside of copyright? Would a 'sole trader' pay the licence fee? Five teachers at 30 bucks...that's 150 + 40 200 bucks a year? Is that really the cost ?

much appreciate your reply to mick-hunt@hotmail.com; michael.c.hunt@gmail.com

I'll be cancelling the trial if I can't find an answer anywhere, which would be a shame as it looks a peer reviewed resource site which is rare...

thanks

Michael Hunt
Cumbria UK

Mick Hunt said...

Ah, hi Heather, all is answered here at FAQ on LP

http://www.lessonplanet.com/us/faq#account2

*always go to FAQ first!*

best regards
MH

Heather said...

Sorry Mick- I never came back this way to see this comment. Glad you were able to work it out. The site license is for schools to have more teacher members than just the one.

Heather