Plan the environment, not just the activity
Half of a great lesson is the setup. Note where materials live and what the room looks like at 8:30 — provocations do the teaching.
Free templateChild Development & Programming
Lesson Plan Template
A one-page lesson plan with boxes for grade, subject, date and lesson title, then objective, skills, materials, activities, assessment and references — one sheet per lesson.
- Format
- Printable PDF · A4
- Pages
- 1
- Best for
- Educators · room leads
- Updated
- Sept 2026
No sign-up required. Print it and share it with your team — it’s free for any child care program to use.
What’s inside
One lesson, planned on one sheet
- Grade, subject, date and lesson titleHeader boxes that identify the lesson and make completed plans easy to file.
- Objective, skills and materialsThree boxes side by side: what the lesson is for, the skills it builds and what you need to set out.
- ActivitiesThe largest box on the page, for the steps of the lesson in the order you will run them.
- Assessment and referencesSpace to note how you will check what children learned, and the books, songs or sources you drew on.
How to use it
Four steps to put it to work this week
- 1Fill in the headerWrite the grade or room, subject, date and a short lesson title. Start from what the children are curious about right now.
- 2Set the objective, skills and materialsOne clear objective is enough. List the skills it supports and the materials to gather beforehand.
- 3Plan the activitiesWrite the activities in order. Leave space: the best plans have room for where the children take it.
- 4Note assessment and referencesDecide how you will tell whether the objective was met, and record your sources so the lesson can be repeated.
Tips from operators
What centers that use this well do differently
Learned the hard way across 3,000 child care spaces — and from the directors and educators who join our Lunch & Learns and Learning Labs.
Keep last month’s plans in the binder
Inspectors ask for evidence of ongoing programming. A dated stack of completed plans is exactly that.
Share the theme with families
One line in the newsletter or family app (“This week: shadows and light”) turns dinner-table chat into extended learning.
Do it digitally in ChildFriendly Pro
Plan the week in the app — tagged to your framework automatically
Build the same plan in ChildFriendly Pro and every observation you log is tagged to FLIGHT, ELECT, ELF or your own outcomes, added to each child’s portfolio and shared with families in their daily journal.
- Pre-loaded provincial frameworks and outcome tags
- AI learning stories from a photo and two lines of notes
- Portfolios and progress reports that build themselves
FAQ
Questions about the Lesson Plan
Can’t find your answer? Chat with a real person who has run a child care center.
Read more FAQsDoes this lesson plan template work with Alberta FLIGHT, Ontario ELECT or BC ELF?
Yes. The sheet is framework-agnostic — write the outcome codes or names your province uses in the objective or skills box. If you use ChildFriendly Pro, the same plan can be built in the app with those frameworks pre-loaded and tagged automatically.
Is a written lesson plan enough for licensing inspections?
In most provinces and states, yes — inspectors look for evidence of intentional, ongoing programming rather than a specific format. Keep completed plans dated and filed, and pair them with your daily journals or observation notes.
Can I fill it in on an iPad instead of printing?
The PDF has no form fields, so it is meant to be printed and written on by hand. On a tablet you can write on it with a PDF annotation app and a stylus.
How is this different from a daily activity sheet?
A daily sheet records what happened; this plans a lesson ahead, including how you will assess it. Used together they give you both intent and evidence — which is what quality frameworks and accreditation bodies ask for.
Can I use it in infant and toddler rooms?
Yes. Write the room name in the grade box and the learning area in the subject box, and keep the objective simple — for example a sensory exploration or tummy-time activity.
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