500+ Free Back to School Lesson Plans from PBS LearningMedia

If your number one back-to-school wish was to have access to great new lesson plans to integrate into your curriculum– your wish has been granted. PBS LearningMedia provides over 500 customizable lesson plans ready for the picking. See a few favorites here:

Drawing Inferences
Grades K-5 | Lesson Plan | Literacy
Strengthen your students reading comprehension skills by teaching them to draw inferences from various types of text. In this lesson elementary students will practice drawing inferences or making predictions before, during and after reading, and then validating them. The lesson is part of the Blue Ribbon Readers collection.

Product Life Cycle
Grades 3-4 | Lesson Plan | Cycles & Processes
In this lesson, students flex their critical thinking skills by piecing together the “life story” of objects pulled from the trash. Featuring LOOP SCOOPS videos, students think about where materials in everyday products come from, and learn that knowing about product life cycles can help us make decisions that reduce waste and pollution.

What is a Robot?
Grades 3-5 |Lesson Plan | Engineering & Design
Help your students to expand their understanding of the engineering design process with this dynamic lesson on robotics. In this lesson, students are introduced to robots, including ones that exist in their everyday lives. They learn about the kinds of things that robots do, the excitement that goes with designing and testing, and what inspires ideas for different robots.

STEM Careers
Grades 6-12 | Lesson Plan | Impact of Technology
What does it take to pursue a STEM career? Use this 3-day lesson plan to help students identify the practical skills they need to get their career rolling. Students will view video clips about graduate and middle school students with interests in STEM careers and compare technologies from yesterday with today. They will explore careers on-line before writing about their futures as STEM professionals.

Invest in Yourself
Grades 7-12 | Lesson Plan | Budgeting
Prep your students for lifelong success by exposing them to the basics of budgeting! Key concepts include income, expenses, savings, and debt. Students learn the basics of personal financial management including how to manage various income and savings scenarios.

Tips for Designing Lessons
Grades 13+ | Tips | Lesson Planning
This downloadable “tip sheet” offers a series of thought-provoking questions designed to support your lesson planning efforts. These tips can be used to promote thinking about teaching and learning during the planning process, while teaching, and again when reflecting on the impact of the lesson either alone or with a mentor or supervisor.

To explore the full collection of lesson plans, select “browse all” on the homepage and use the filter tool to narrow your results by resource type.