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Lesson planning with AI

Turn a single learning objective into a complete, standards-aligned lesson — hook, activities, differentiation, and an exit ticket — in about five minutes.

The fastest win Don't ask an AI to "make a lesson." Give it the five ingredients below and it will do the heavy lifting for you.

The five ingredients of a good prompt

A vague prompt gives a vague plan. Every strong lesson prompt names these five things:

Ingredient	Example
Grade / level	7th grade, mixed ability
Subject & topic	Science — the water cycle
Objective / standard	Students can explain evaporation and condensation
Time & format	45 minutes, in-person, some group work
Constraints	No lab equipment; include an ELL scaffold

Try it yourself

Fill in the fields below to assemble a ready-to-paste prompt. Copy it into your school's approved AI assistant.

Prompt builder

Grade / level Subject & topic Objective (what students should be able to do) Time & format Constraints (materials, ELL/IEP, etc.)

The reusable template

Prefer to keep your own copy? Here's the same structure as a fill-in-the-blank template.

You are an experienced [SUBJECT] teacher.
Plan a [TIME] lesson for [GRADE].

Objective: students will be able to [OBJECTIVE].
Format: [IN-PERSON / ONLINE], [GROUP / INDIVIDUAL work].
Constraints: [MATERIALS, ELL/IEP NEEDS, ANYTHING TO AVOID].

Give me:
1. A 5-minute hook to open the lesson
2. A step-by-step activity sequence with timings
3. One check-for-understanding per section
4. A short exit ticket (3 questions)
5. One extension for early finishers

Keep it practical and classroom-ready.

Before you use the output AI drafts are a starting point, not a final plan. Read it for accuracy, check it against your standards, and remove anything that doesn't fit your students. Never paste real student names, grades, or IEP details into a tool your district hasn't approved.

Worked example

Here's the kind of plan the prompt above produces from the water-cycle inputs. Notice it's a draft you'd trim and adjust — not a finished lesson.

Water Cycle — 45 min, Grade 7

HOOK (5 min): Show a cold glass "sweating" on a warm day.
  Ask: where did the water come from?

ACTIVITY (25 min):
  1. Mini-lesson: evaporation & condensation (8 min)
  2. Think-pair-share: label a water-cycle diagram (10 min)
  3. Quick demo: breathe on a cold mirror (7 min)

CHECK: thumbs up/down — "Is dew evaporation or condensation?"

EXIT TICKET (3 Qs): define evaporation; define condensation;
  give one real-world example of each.

EXTENSION: research where your town's tap water comes from.

Level up: three follow-up prompts

The first draft is a conversation-starter. Keep refining it in the same chat:

"Rewrite the reading passage at a 4th-grade level."
"Turn the exit ticket into a 5-question multiple-choice quiz with an answer key."
"Suggest a 2-minute hands-on demo I can do with only household items."

Common mistakes

Mistake	Fix
Prompt is too vague ("make a science lesson")	Give all five ingredients — grade, topic, objective, time, constraints.
Accepting the first draft as final	Read for accuracy and cut anything that doesn't fit your students.
One giant prompt for everything	Iterate: get the plan, then ask for the quiz, then the scaffold.
Pasting student data	Keep names, grades and IEP details out of unapproved tools.

FAQ

Which assistant should I use? Whichever your school has approved — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Copilot all handle this well. The prompt structure is the same.

Will it know my standards? It knows common frameworks broadly, but paste the exact standard text for the tightest alignment.

Is this "cheating" on planning? No more than using a textbook's teacher guide. You still make every professional decision — AI just removes the blank page.

Keep going Next in the track: Differentiating instruction with AI — turn this one plan into three reading levels.