This post is written by MaiCherish Harris, Elms College student and NEPM Education Intern:

This year as part of my studies, I took a class called “Social Studies and Science Methods.” For this class, I am required to create lesson plans and teach demonstration lessons.  

Attempting to create lessons for a subject that isn’t your strong suit is daunting.  I was extremely relieved to learn that PBS LearningMedia has lesson plans structured around 

PBS KIDS shows. By creating a free teacher account, I was able to search for lessons by standards. I was also able to save lesson plans that I liked to my “favorites.” 

Since creating the lesson plan was part of my homework, I checked with my teacher to see if it was okay to use the ones I found.  I was told I could use them as guides and used a Peep and the Big Wide World lesson plan about weather.

The support materials for this lesson included some background reading as well as tips for teaching it. Using both of these gave me the confidence I needed to teach an entire 40 minute lesson for the first time. 

Teachers can learn how to use the search tool at PBS LearningMedia to find their own relevant lesson plans here.