Effective lessons require clear objectives, appropriate activities, useful assessment, realistic timing, and reflection after teaching. These two free lesson plan checklist templates help teachers review preparation before a lesson and evaluate delivery afterward.
Why Use Lesson Plan Checklist Templates?
A checklist supports consistency without forcing every class into the same teaching style. It reminds educators to connect learning objectives with instruction, practice, assessment, differentiation, materials, and closure. The reflection version also turns classroom observations into specific improvement actions.
What the Templates Include
- teacher, subject, class, topic, date, and duration
- measurable learning objectives and prior knowledge
- instruction, guided practice, and independent activities
- formative assessment and differentiation
- resources, timing, closure, and priorities
- observed evidence, improvement actions, ownership, and review dates
Both templates are designed for easy editing in Microsoft Excel and compatible spreadsheet programs. Their structured layouts save setup time while allowing users to add rows, rename fields, change colors, and adapt categories.
Download Two Editable Excel Templates
Each preview below shows the corresponding downloadable workbook. Choose the version that matches your workflow or use both files together.
1. Lesson Plan Preparation Checklist
Covers objectives, prior knowledge, instruction, activities, assessment, differentiation, materials, timing, and closure.
2. Lesson Delivery and Reflection Checklist
Records observable success indicators, evidence, improvement actions, responsible people, and review dates.
How to Use These Templates
Complete the preparation checklist while designing the lesson. Confirm that each activity supports the stated learning objective and that assessment can reveal whether students understood the content. After teaching, record evidence in the reflection checklist and select one or two practical improvements.
Review and update the workbook regularly. Before printing or sharing, confirm names, dates, calculations, and any confidential information.
Practical Tips
- Write objectives that describe what learners should demonstrate.
- Plan checks for understanding throughout the lesson, not only at the end.
- Prepare support and extension options for different learning needs.
- Use reflection notes to improve the next lesson rather than merely rating performance.
Customizing the Excel Files
Download the chosen workbook and save a separate working copy. You can alter headings, colors, date formats, status labels, priorities, and row counts. When extending a calculated column, confirm that its formula covers every new row. Preserve an untouched master copy for future use and protect private information when sharing completed files.
What to Check Before and After Each Lesson
A lesson plan checklist template is most useful when teachers use it at two points: during planning and right after teaching.
Before the lesson, confirm the learning objective is written in student-friendly language, materials and devices are ready, timings add up to the period length, and there is a plan for students who finish early or need extra support. Note how you will check understanding, such as an exit ticket or quick quiz.
After the lesson, record what worked, which students struggled, and whether the objective was met. Add one change you will make next time. Over a term these notes build a useful record for reviews, observations and planning the next unit.
Keeping both checklists in one Excel workbook makes it easy to filter by class, subject or week.
Sharing Checklists With Mentors and Departments
Lesson plan checklists also help when teachers work together. New teachers can share completed checklists with a mentor before an observation, and departments can agree on common items such as differentiation, assessment and safety checks. Keep a copy of each week’s checklist in a shared folder so coordinators can spot common needs, such as more resources or training, across classes.
Writing Strong Objectives in a Lesson Plan Checklist Template
The first line of the lesson plan checklist template asks for the learning objective, and everything else in the checklist depends on it. A strong objective describes what students will be able to do by the end of the lesson, not just what the teacher will cover.
Compare two versions. “Teach fractions” describes a topic. “Students will compare two fractions with different denominators and explain which is larger” describes a skill that can be observed and checked. The second version makes it much easier to choose an activity, plan a short assessment and decide afterwards whether the lesson worked.
When filling in the checklist, use action verbs such as identify, explain, compare, solve, describe, design or evaluate. Keep to one or two objectives for a single lesson. If you find yourself writing four or five, the lesson is probably trying to do too much and may work better split across two periods.
Example: A Completed Preparation Checklist
Here is how a teacher might complete the preparation checklist for a middle school science lesson on the water cycle. Use it as a model and replace the details with your own subject and class.
- Objective: students will describe the stages of the water cycle and explain how heat causes evaporation.
- Prior knowledge: students already know the three states of matter from the previous unit.
- Starter: a short question on the board asking where puddles go after rain.
- Instruction: a labelled diagram explained step by step, with key words displayed.
- Guided practice: pairs arrange picture cards in the correct order and discuss each stage.
- Independent task: students draw and label their own water cycle diagram.
- Check for understanding: an exit ticket asking students to explain evaporation in one sentence.
- Differentiation: a word bank for students who need support and an extension question about clouds for those who finish early.
- Materials: diagram slides, picture card sets, blank paper and colored pencils.
- Closure: a quick recap where students name each stage in order.
Every row in the checklist now has a clear answer, which means the lesson is ready to teach.
Planning Differentiation and Support
Most classes include students with different starting points, so the differentiation row is one of the most important parts of the checklist. Think about three groups when planning: students who need extra support to reach the objective, students who are working at the expected level, and students who are ready for more challenge.
Support might include sentence starters, worked examples, visual aids, a word bank or a shorter task with the same objective. Challenge might include an open-ended question, a real-world problem or a task that asks students to explain their reasoning. Record these choices in the checklist, and note any students with individual learning plans so their agreed adjustments are not missed.
Choosing the Right Formative Assessment
The assessment row should show how you will know, during or at the end of the lesson, whether students met the objective. Simple methods often work best:
- Exit tickets with one or two short questions
- Mini whiteboards for quick whole-class answers
- Thumbs up, sideways or down for a fast confidence check
- Targeted questioning of a few students during practice
- Short quizzes at the start of the next lesson
- Reviewing work samples while students are working
Write the chosen method in the checklist before the lesson. After teaching, record what the evidence showed in the reflection checklist so the next lesson can build on it.
Adapting the Checklist for Different Subjects and Grade Levels
The template is intentionally general, so it can be adjusted for any subject. Science teachers may add a safety and equipment check. Language teachers may add rows for speaking, listening, reading and writing skills. Physical education teachers can add space, warm-up and equipment checks, while art teachers may add setup and clean-up time.
For younger students, add rows for transitions, movement breaks and visual instructions. For older students, add rows for independent research, exam skills or links to coursework. You can keep one master checklist and create a separate copy for each subject.
Common Lesson Planning Mistakes to Avoid
- Planning activities first and adding the objective afterwards.
- Leaving no time for closure or checking understanding.
- Planning more content than the period allows.
- Using the same task for every student without support or challenge.
- Skipping reflection when a lesson goes well, which means successful ideas are forgotten.
A lesson plan checklist does not need to be long to be effective. Used consistently, it helps teachers plan with purpose and improve each lesson a little at a time.
Linking Daily Lessons to the Wider Unit Plan
A single lesson is easier to plan when you know where it sits in the unit. Before completing the checklist, look at the unit or term plan and note which lesson comes before and after this one. Add a short line to the prior knowledge row about what students learned last time, and a note in the closure row about how the lesson leads into the next topic. When every lesson in a unit has a completed checklist, you can quickly see which objectives have been taught, which need more practice and where to place revision before an end-of-unit test. Saving the checklists in date order also gives you a ready record to share with a coordinator or substitute teacher when needed.
Final Thoughts
These free lesson plan checklist templates provide two practical layouts for organizing responsibilities, deadlines, and progress. Download one or both Excel files and customize them to create a planning system suited to your exact needs.
You can also check these important templates like the teacher syllabus template and assignment planner template.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can these checklists be used for online lessons?
Yes. Replace classroom materials with digital resources, participation tools, and technical checks.
Are they suitable for classroom observations?
Yes. The delivery and reflection checklist includes observable indicators, evidence, actions, and review dates.
Can schools add their own standards?
Yes. Edit the headings and rows to match institutional or curriculum requirements.
