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Lesson Plans & Activities for Teachers

Create, edit, and build lessons plans with created activities

Molly Farber avatar
Written by Molly Farber
Updated over a week ago

Lesson plans serve as a teacher's daily roadmap, outlining what students need to learn, how the material will be taught, and how learning outcomes will be assessed. These plans consist of daily activities that help teachers stay organized and effective by providing a detailed guide for each class period.

πŸ’‘ Lesson plans and activities can only be created on the web. However, teachers and admins can view them on mobile.

🚨 Your school's administrator can choose to require approval for lesson plans created by teachers.


View Lesson Plans on Web

🚨 Staff can only see the lesson plans for their assigned classroom. If you have questions about the lessons you can view, please contact your administrator.

  1. From your Admin Dashboard, click Lessons and then Overview.
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  2. Your lesson plans for the current week will open.

  3. Click Week Of and use the calendar to select a different week to view.

View Approved, Pending, and Rejected Lesson Plans

If your school requires lesson plan approvals, you can toggle between your approved, pending, and rejected lesson plans. Click the tabs at the top of the Lesson Plan page to change your view.


View Lesson Plans and Activities on Mobile

Lesson plans and activities can be viewed on the mobile app, making it easy for teachers to reference the lesson plan while they are in the classroom.

  1. Open your Playground mobile app, tap the three lines at the top left corner of the screen, and tap Lesson Plans.
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  2. Today's lesson plan will open. Tap a date at the top of the screen to view the lesson plan for that day.

  3. Tap an activity to view the details and instructions.

  4. If you would like to post an observation for this activity, click Post in the top right corner of the screen.


Create and Edit Activities

Activities are the foundation of lesson plans. Add new activities to Playground so you can build out lesson plans.

View and/or Edit Activities

  1. From your Admin Dashboard, click Lessons and then Activities.
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  2. A full list of your activities will appear in a table.

  3. You can filter this list and/or add additional columns to the table.

  4. Click the three dots next to a lesson plan, and then click Edit or View.

  5. The activity will open, and you can view and/or edit it depending on your selection.

  6. Click Save to return to the full list of activities.

πŸ’‘ Editing an activity will change that activity for all lesson plans it is included in.

Create a New Activity

  1. From your Admin Dashboard, click Lessons and then Activities.

  2. Click the blue New Activity button in the top right corner of your screen. Fill out the information in each section:

    1. Activity basics

      1. The name, brief description of the activity, and age range for the activity

    2. Additional information

      1. Information your staff will need to properly conduct the activity and/or test the student

    3. Resources

      1. Attach required resources such as a video, PDF file, or other media/documentation.

  3. Click Settings on the left side of the screen to assign the activity to a classroom.
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  4. Click Save to complete.

πŸ’‘ Experiment with our beta feature, Autocomplete with AI, to have AI add details to your activity. Simply type the activity name and a brief description and AI will generate the activity details for you.


Create and Edit Lesson Plans

Prefer to watch a video? Click here.

Lesson plans are created week-by-week and are made up of activities.

  1. From your Admin Dashboard, click Lessons and then Lesson Plans.

  2. Click the blue New Lesson Plan button in the top-right corner of your screen.
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  3. Add the required information for the lesson plan:

    1. Lesson plan title: the title that will be visible to staff

    2. Week of: the week the lesson plan will take place

    3. Classroom: the classrooms this lesson plan should be visible to

  4. [Optional] Add a note for each day by typing in the text box that says Enter Note For The Day.

  5. Click on Add Row to start adding the activities you created to the lesson plan. Each row allows for a section title and one or more activities.

    1. To delete a section, click on the red Trash Can icon.

    2. To duplicate a section, click on the Multiple-box icon.
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  6. Click on + Add Activity under each day to add activities for that day.

    1. The Select Lesson Activity window will appear

      1. Search for the activity by the name you gave it.

      2. Click into the search bar to bring up all of your created activities.

      3. You can create new activities on the fly by clicking on Create New in the window.

  7. Select the activity you wish to add and click Save to add the activity to your lesson plan.

    1. You can view additional details about the lesson by clicking on the Eye icon

    2. To delete the activity, click the three dots and then click Remove.
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  8. Continue adding activities as many activities as you'd like.

  9. Click on Settings to customize your lesson plan.

    1. Show Weekends For This Lesson Plan: if your school is open on the weekends, select this option.

    2. Set the Teacher's Visibility.

      1. Editable - teachers can view and edit the lesson plan

      2. Visible - teachers can see the lesson plan but cannot edit it

      3. Hidden - teachers cannot see the lesson

  10. Click Save to create your lesson plan.

  11. If your school requires lesson plan approval, the lesson plan will move to the Pending Approval tab until approved. Once approved, the lesson plan will move to the Approved tab.

πŸ’‘ You can edit a created lesson plan by clicking into the Lesson Plans tab and then clicking on the lesson plan you want to edit. Make sure to confirm edits made by clicking Save.


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