AI lesson plan generator
Give it a topic, a year group and how long the lesson runs, and you get objectives, a materials list, a starter, the activities in order with timings, and how you will check understanding at the end. The plan below is a real one, unedited - and its activity timings add up to exactly the lesson length it was asked for, which is the first thing worth checking about any generated plan.
2 free generations on every account. No card needed. Sign in with your Teachit account.
Here is one it made
Year 8 · Science · “Photosynthesis”
Generated from a one-line brief and published unedited. Note the materials list names actual apparatus - iodine solution, ethanol, safety goggles - rather than "materials as needed", and carries a safety note for the two of them that need one.
Photosynthesis: How Plants Make Food
Year 8 · Science · 45 minutes
Objectives
- Describe photosynthesis as the process by which green plants make glucose using light energy.
- Identify the reactants and products of photosynthesis, including carbon dioxide, water, glucose and oxygen.
- Use a word equation to represent photosynthesis.
- Explain how a simple investigation can provide evidence that light is needed for photosynthesis.
Materials
- Fresh variegated leaf or two leaves from a healthy plant
- Desk lamp or bright window
- Opaque black paper and paper clips
- Boiling tube or heatproof beaker
- Kettle or hot water supplied by the teacher
- Ethanol in a water bath, prepared and handled by the teacher
- Iodine solution in a dropping bottle
- White tile
- Forceps
- Safety goggles
- Photosynthesis word-equation cards
- Mini-whiteboards and pens
- Exit tickets
Warm-up
Starter - Display a healthy plant in a sunny classroom and ask pupils to write two ideas on mini-whiteboards: what the plant takes in from its surroundings and what it makes. Collect a few suggestions, then distinguish between food made by the plant and substances absorbed or released.
Activities
45 min total- 6 min
Phenomenon and prediction
Show a leaf with part of its surface covered by opaque paper. Ask pupils to predict what will happen if the leaf is tested for starch after several hours in bright light. Pupils justify their prediction using the idea that light may be needed to make food. Explain that the teacher will use a prepared leaf or a result sample because the full decolourisation process takes longer than this lesson. Safety note: pupils must not handle hot water, ethanol or iodine unless specifically directed; goggles are required.
- 8 min
The photosynthesis process
Pupils examine a diagram of a green leaf and annotate where carbon dioxide enters, where water arrives, and where oxygen leaves. The teacher briefly introduces chlorophyll as the green substance that absorbs light energy. Pupils then explain to a partner why a plant needs both light energy and chlorophyll.
- 9 min
Word-equation card sort
In pairs, pupils arrange cards to form the word equation: carbon dioxide + water -light energy and chlorophyll-> glucose + oxygen. They identify the reactants and products, then copy the completed equation into their exercise books. Challenge pupils to explain why light and chlorophyll are conditions rather than products.
- 10 min
Starch evidence investigation
Provide pupils with a prepared leaf showing the iodine test results, or demonstrate the final stages using a leaf that has been exposed to light with part covered. Pupils observe the blue-black area and the yellow-brown area on a white tile, record the results in a table, and decide which area contains starch. Discuss why starch is useful evidence that glucose has been made, while making clear that the test does not directly test for glucose. Safety note: iodine stains and can irritate skin; ethanol is flammable and must be heated only in a water bath by the teacher.
- 7 min
Apply and explain
Pupils answer two increasingly demanding questions in their exercise books: first, explain why a plant kept in darkness cannot make glucose at the same rate; second, explain why a variegated leaf may produce starch only in its green areas when exposed to light. Pairs compare explanations and improve them by adding the terms light energy, chlorophyll and starch.
- 5 min
Plenary and exit ticket
Plenary - Pupils complete an exit ticket: write the word equation for photosynthesis, name one reactant and one product, and explain what the iodine result shows about the covered and uncovered parts of the leaf. Invite one pupil to use a mini-whiteboard to correct a deliberately incomplete equation.
Assessment
Use questioning during the card sort and annotation task to check whether pupils distinguish reactants, products and conditions. Collect the exit tickets and mark for three features: an accurate photosynthesis word equation, correct identification of carbon dioxide or water as a reactant and glucose or oxygen as a product, and a clear explanation that the blue-black iodine result indicates starch, providing evidence that photosynthesis has occurred. Address confusion between glucose and starch in the next lesson or through targeted questioning.
Homework
Draw and label a simple leaf diagram showing carbon dioxide entering, water arriving, oxygen leaving and light energy being absorbed. Add the photosynthesis word equation and write one sentence explaining why a leaf needs chlorophyll.
This is what it prints
The same resource as the PDF download - the colour, the frame and the layout an HTML version cannot show you.
Lesson plan
Year 8 · Science
Science teal: objectives, a materials list naming real reagents, and a safety note for the ethanol and iodine.
Lesson plan
Year 8 · Science
Six activities carrying their own timings - 6, 8, 9, 10, 7, 5 - which total the 45 minutes asked for.
Tap a page to read it full size, or use the buttons above for the whole file.
What you get
Timings that add up
Each activity carries its own estimate and the total matches the lesson you asked for. A plan that runs twenty minutes over is not a plan, it is a wish, and it is the most common failing of generated lesson plans.
A materials list before you start
Specific and physical, as in the sample above. This is the section that decides whether you find out you need something the night before or four minutes into the lesson.
An assessment, not a gesture
A concrete way to check understanding - reading group results tables and listening for particular vocabulary in the sample - rather than the phrase "assess pupil learning".
Usable as a cover lesson
Because it states materials, timings and an assessment explicitly, it is also what someone covering your class needs. That is usually when a full written plan is needed at the shortest notice.
How it works
- 1
Set the year group, subject and duration
Duration is the input most planning tools ignore and teachers care about most. 16 year groups from Nursery to further and higher education, across 16 subjects including English, Maths, Science, Geography, History and Modern Foreign Languages.
- 2
Add your curriculum reference and context
Paste the objective you are teaching to, and note what the class covered last week or struggled with. The objectives and assessment are written around them.
- 3
Teach from it, or hand it over
Comes out as a branded PDF you can teach straight from. Give the science and the timings a look first - AI can make mistakes, and the lesson goes out under your name.
Before you teach it
Read the plan through once before you stand up with it. It arrives structured and ready to teach; the read-through is for the things only you know - the apparatus in your prep room, what your class actually covered last week, and how your department words its objectives. The plan saves you the hour. The judgement stays yours.
Questions
- Can I generate a lesson plan for a specific length of lesson?
- Yes, and it is the point. The plan is written to the duration you set, with per-activity timings that total it - the sample above was asked for 45 minutes and its six activities sum to exactly that.
- Can I use this for a cover lesson?
- Yes, and it is one of the better uses. The plan lists materials, timed activities and an assessment explicitly, which is exactly what a cover teacher needs and the hardest thing to write well at short notice.
- Can it plan from a video or PDF I already have?
- Yes. Upload the material first and the plan is built from its actual content, with a link back to the source.
- Is it aligned to the National Curriculum?
- You can paste the objective or specification point you are teaching to, and the objectives and assessment are written around it. Confirm the alignment yourself before you teach - wording varies between exam boards and between one school's scheme of work and the next, and that is a call only you can make.