I’ve been thinking of writing about this subject for awhile, because I learned a lot during the lockdowns for the pandemic. As a retired teacher and children’s author, I have a unique perspective on this subject, and I thought it would be a good idea to finally share it with you.

Lesson plans are a great way to turn your book into an educational tool. I found as a teacher, most books have themes that can be used instructionally. It’s a matter of matching up what your teaching with the message/ theme of a book. Believe me, teachers are looking for them. So, make it easy for them. Set-up a way for teachers to find the educational points of your book by creating a lesson plan for it or a helpful study guide for teachers. It’s something that book clubs can use as well.

But how do you get the lesson plans? Study Guide? The quickest way is to write it yourself. And I’ve supplied a template for you. You just plug in your themes, messages, ideas, subjects covered from your book into the template study guide below. Any good teacher can use the study guide to make up their own lesson plan and include your book in a lesson or unit they may be teaching.

So, ready to get started? Just click the button to download below to get to the free template in PDF format. Print it out and fill it in or use the digital copy to start your own study guide. Adapt as you need to your book.

Another thing you can do is hire a teacher/retired teacher to write lesson plans or a study guide for your book. They are a little more complicated than just a simple study guide. All you’ll need to do is give them the grade levels that you think your book will be educational for. If you want to see what most teachers use, they are called a “5 Step Lesson Plan”. You could try to write it yourself if you’ve had teaching experience. You’d be surprised by how much a picture book can be used for or how a middle grade book can be read-aloud to younger children or read by older children as a reading assignment.

The last thing that can be done is to create a teachable unit to go along with your book. When I was teaching, I actually developed a unit for my first book in my Crystal Keeper Series, “The Lost Secret of Fairies”. I had used the writing of the manuscript and the other books to help teach writing during writing workshop. Then, when I finished my book, I used the book during reading time as an assigned novel study. Any book can have a novel study unit assigned to it. I do have the whole unit now available for free and my ebook edition priced really low to make it easy to get copies. I have had many home-school students/parents take advantage of this opportunity, especially when I first posted it during the Spring Lockdown of 2020. I really felt a pull to support the many students and struggling parents at home. Now, it is a testimony of how a unit for your book can help get it into readers’ hands.

So, I hope this helps in bringing more sales of your book into your life, and gets it into the hands of more children. It always feels satisfying to me to hear stories about children enjoying my books. A study guide, lesson plan, or novel study unit will make your book more appealing to educators and parents. Please let me know in the comments if you’ve found this has helped and/or any experiences you might have had with lesson plans or study guides for your book.

-Tiffany Turner

Children’s Fantasy Author

Editor/Head Writer of

Indie Children’s Authors Connection Blog