Your first lesson

This walks through making a short lesson from start to finish: a title, a section with a passage, a spelling list, a question and a picture, then a look at the result and a printout.

You don't need an account for any of this. Everything you do is saved in your browser as you go. You only need to sign in if you want to publish the lesson to the hub or save it to the cloud.

1. Open the editor

On the home page, press Open the editor. You can also press New lesson in the app header at any time to start a fresh lesson.

The first time you open the editor, a small Create your first lesson guide appears in the corner. It sums up the same steps as this page, and you can work in the editor while it's open. Close it whenever you like, and bring it back with the ? button (How to create a lesson) at the top of the editor.

2. Give the lesson a title

At the top of the editor, under Document title, click the title and type your own, for example "Domestic Cats". You can change it at any time.

Under the title you can pick an age range (it starts as Any age), which prints on the lesson. If you'd like ideas for a topic, Suggest ideas offers some for that age range (see AI writing help).

3. Add a section

Lessons are made of sections. Press Add section (or the round + button in the bottom-right corner), type a name under Section name, such as "Ancient Egypt", and press Add.

The new section has a row of buttons for adding content: Add text, Add image, Search images, Add question, Spelling words, VAKT activity and Generate with AI. The row sits under whichever block you're working on, or at the bottom of the section.

4. Write the passage

Press Add text and type the passage into the box. Write the words you want spelled in ALL CAPS:

Cats were first tamed in ANCIENT EGYPT, where people kept them to protect grain from MICE.

You can make words bold, italic or underlined, and add footnotes, from the small toolbar on the text block (see Formatting, footnotes & sources).

5. Fill in the spelling list

Press Spelling words to add a spelling list. Then press the wand button on the list (Fill in every ALL-CAPS word from the lesson text), and every word you wrote in capitals is put in the list for you. You can also type words in yourself, use Add word for more rows, and remove any you don't want.

6. Ask a question

Press Add question and pick a type. Each type has a color and a short description in the menu; for this one, pick Single answer. Type the question where it says "Type the question..." and its answer under Answer:

Where were cats first tamed? Answer: EGYPT

The eight types and what they're for are explained in Question blocks.

7. Add a picture

Press Search images, type something like "cat", press Search, and click a picture to add it. Its credit is filled in for you; add a caption saying what it shows under Caption (optional). To use a picture from your own device instead, press Add image. See Pictures for more.

Every block has buttons to move it up or down or delete it, and with a mouse you can drag a block by its handle.

8. Preview it

Press Preview at the top of the editor to see the lesson exactly as a reader will. Press Back to editing to carry on working.

If you'd like a second opinion, Check looks the lesson over and lists anything that needs attention (see Lesson checks).

9. Print or download it

Open the Export menu at the top of the editor:

• Export DOCX downloads a Word document.
• Print PDF downloads a PDF, ready to print.
• Save to Google Docs puts it in your Google Drive, where available.

On a phone, these are in the Lesson actions menu (the three dots). See Exporting & printing for what the printed lesson looks like.

10. Publish it (optional)

To share the lesson with others, open Save to cloud and choose Publish to hub, or Save as draft to keep a private copy in the cloud that only you can see. If you aren't signed in yet, you'll be taken to the sign-in page first; signing in is usually by a link sent to your email, with no password (see Lesson hub & accounts).

Where your lesson lives

Your lesson stays in this browser, saved automatically, and every version is kept in its history. All your lessons are listed under On this device (see Lessons on this device). Until you save a lesson to the cloud, it's only on this device, so clearing your browsing data would remove it.

From here, the overview lists everything else the editor can do.