Short circle, long play, outside twice

Toddler Lesson Plan Templates

A weekly plan for one- and two-year-olds that is honest about how toddlers learn: a short songs-and-story time, sensory and messy play, two outdoor periods, nap, and the diapering and hand-washing that happen all day and count as talk time. Plus a one-page individual plan for the child who needs their own.

The group plan and the child's own

2 toddler lesson plan templates

Landscape toddler weekly plan with nine routine rows including songs and story, sensory play, two outdoor periods and nap, a time column, and three note boxes below

Word Google Docs

Toddler Weekly Lesson Plan — Word & Google Docs

Short group times, long play and two trips outside, with the active-play minimums printed at the foot so the plan passes an inspection as it stands.

Download Word Open in Google Docs

PDF

Toddler Weekly Lesson Plan — fillable PDF

One page, landscape. Type into the fields or print it blank and handwrite.

Download fillable PDF

Portrait individual child plan with a right-now box, a five-row table across developmental areas with focus, experiences and observation columns, and family input and next steps boxes

Word Google Docs

Individual Child Plan — Word & Google Docs

One infant or toddler, one page: what they are doing now, a five-area table of focus, experiences and observations, family input, and next steps with a review date.

Download Word Open in Google Docs

PDF

Individual Child Plan — fillable PDF

One page, portrait. Type into the fields or print it blank and handwrite.

Download fillable PDF

Specifications: US Letter, 8.5 × 11 inches. Word files are editable .docx that open in Word 2007 through Microsoft 365, including Word for Mac; the Google Docs link makes a copy in your own Drive; the PDF has real form fields and prints as plain hairline boxes when blank. Free to use in as many classes as you like, no account, no watermark.

Why it is laid out this way

About the toddler templates

The toddler grid differs from the preschool one in what it leaves out. There is no small-group row and the group time is labelled short, because a two-year-old's circle is a song and a book, not a lesson. Sensory, art and messy play get a row of their own; so does the afternoon choice time that is where most of the day's learning happens. The time column is there because licensing wants approximate times, and because toddler rooms run on the clock more than any other.

The active-play numbers at the foot are Texas's — at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous play and 60 minutes outdoors a day, weather permitting — printed because they are the most concrete minimums any state publishes and a useful check for everyone else. The individual child plan is the same one the infant page uses: toddlers in licensed care are planned for as a group and as individuals, and the individual sheet lives in the portfolio rather than on the wall.

Questions teachers ask

Toddler lesson plans, answered

How is a toddler plan different from a preschool plan?

Shorter teacher-led times, more routine rows, no small-group instruction, and an explicit two-outdoor-periods structure. Toddlers learn through routines — diapering, meals, transitions — so the plan treats those as part of the day rather than as gaps between activities.

Do I need a plan for each toddler?

A posted group plan is what licensing requires. Individual planning is what accreditation, Early Head Start and most curricula expect on top of it, kept in the child's file. The individual child plan here is one page: what the child is doing now, what you will offer by developmental area, what the family told you, and when you will review it.

What about 2-year-olds who are moving to preschool?

Use the toddler grid until the room changes; the preschool grid adds a small-group row and a center-based structure that most twos are not ready for. The two sheets share their row names where they overlap, so the move is easy.