The Top Ten Online Lesson Plans for Learning ABC's

The less time teachers spend reinventing the wheel, the more time they have to focus one-on-one with students and on developing a learning environment that compliments those lesson plans. Finding free lesson plans online isn't easy. Unfortunately, most websites that offer lesson plans also charge for them. Thankfully, there are a number of websites that do offer free online lesson plans for learning ABC's. These are lesson plans that are designed and submitted by educators just like you. In most cases they are activities, worksheets and guidelines that are already proven effective in helping children to learn their ABC's.

The Top Ten Online Lesson Plans for Learning ABC's

The following list details ten of the best sources for downloading or printing free lesson plans designed to teach preschool or kindergarten students their ABC's.

#1 - Teach-Nology.com is a very well designed website that presents the best Internet resources for teachers all in one place. There are a fair number of lesson plans listed in the Alphabet section, as well as worksheets, workbooks and other resources. The only drawback is that throughout you'll come across tools that are not free, so using this site does require some searching.



#2 - FunLessonPlans.com is a site that's geared more toward age-appropriate lesson plans rather than subject specific plans. The navigation menu bar is organized into sections for pre-k, kindergarten, and older grade levels. Right on the main page you'll find a wonderful printable preschool lesson plan where you print an Airplane alphabet banner that the kids can color and assemble.



#3 - First-School is probably the most comprehensive site for free lesson plans that any teacher could possibly hope for. First-Schoool.ws is a large website that covers all sorts of topics from fairy tales and fables to weather and shapes. The Alphabet section lets you choose from a letter in the alphabet, and then it offers a multitude of printable activities and lesson plans for that particular letter.



#4 - K-3TeacherResources.com is a good site, but unfortunately it's not free. However, there is a free section that offers a few very valuable teacher resources, including very nice printable alphabet posters.



#5 - Proteacher.com is another very useful website that serves as a sort of collection point for teacher resources from around the net. When you find a lesson plan or activity that you like, it will open the lesson from the external site within the Proteacher.com frame. Most of the free lessons offered are free and very useful, like this "Alphabet Big Book" activity for ages 3 to 9.



#6 - AtoZTeacherStuff.com provides another collection of alphabet lesson plans from all over the Internet, much like Proteacher. However, on this site you'll also find lots of printables, articles and other resources. Also like Proteacher, there are resources that cost money mixed in with free resources, so you'll need to search through the listings carefully.



#7 - Bella Online is one example of the remaining few resources on this list that are not collections of alphabet lesson plans, but individual hidden gems, mixed in with various other resources on obscure or very general web pages. This article by Alissa Moy on Bella Online, in particular, is an excellent lesson plan in and of itself in that it lays out a number of the most effective ways to teach children about the alphabet.



#8 - Gay's Preschool Rainbow may look like a somewhat amateurish website, but the principles that this web mistress offers in her preschool alphabet lessons are effective and useful for any teacher who is looking for a base to design their own alphabet lesson plans.



#9 - This lesson plan from the Texas Department of State Health Services is titled Let's Read: Eating the Alphabet - Fruits and Vegetables from A to Z, and describes how you can create a classroom activity centered on the book of the same title by author Lois Ehlert.



#10 - The Educator's Reference Desk offers two of the highest quality free, printable lesson plans out of all of the ones listed above. They are written and submitted by an author and a former teacher.



All of the free resources listed above are valuable tools, references and resources that any teacher of preschool and kindergarten teachers can use to either build a curriculum from, or at the very least extract important materials and printables in order to customize a lesson plan that would work best in a particular classroom setting. All students are a little different, and no lesson plan is guaranteed to be the most effective for every student. This is why it's up to the educator to assess students and formulate individual learning plans tailored for each class. The free resources listed above can provide teachers with a significant head start in doing that.