Turn Your Lesson Plans Into a One-Page Week at a Glance
Your lesson plans are long. Specials, homework, and reminders live in emails and calendars. By Wednesday you're flipping through five places to answer "what's next?"
Paste the plans you already have into ChatGPT with this free prompt. You get a one-page Monday to Friday table with what you're teaching, homework, specials, and reminders. Print it and keep it by your desk. ChatGPT only works with what you paste in: it can't see your calendar, email, or curriculum.
Free ChatGPT prompt
I'm a teacher. Turn the information below into a one-page "Week at a Glance" I can print and keep on my desk.
You can work from my full lesson plans or from short notes. Pull out only what I need to see at a glance. Don't rewrite or improve my lessons.
Please follow these rules:
1. Use only the information I give you. Don't add or guess lesson numbers, lesson topics, homework, page numbers, dates, times, or reminders.
2. If something is missing or unclear, leave it blank or write "?" and list your questions under the table. Don't guess.
3. Make a table with these columns: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
4. Make one row for each subject I teach, then rows for Specials and Reminders.
5. In each subject's box, write the lesson number (if I gave one) and a short topic, like "Lesson 21: Arrays with Three Factors."
6. Homework: follow my HOMEWORK LAYOUT choice below. "Inside each subject" means put that day's homework on its own line in the subject's box, starting with "HW:". "Separate row" means add a Homework row after the subjects instead.
7. If I include a daily schedule, add the times to the subject rows. If I don't, leave times out.
8. Keep every box short so the whole table fits on one landscape page with text that is easy to read.
Week of: [DATE]
HOMEWORK LAYOUT: Inside each subject
[Change to "Separate row" if you'd rather have homework in its own row.]
MY LESSON PLANS OR NOTES:
[Paste your weekly lesson plans as they are, or list each subject's lesson number, topic, and homework for each day.]
HOMEWORK (skip if it's already in your plans):
[Example: Mon Math pp. 125-126, Tue Read 20 minutes]
SPECIALS:
[Example: Mon Art, Tue PE, Wed Music, Thu Library, Fri PE]
REMINDERS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS:
[Example: Wed early dismissal 1:00, Fri field trip forms due. No student names.]
DAILY SCHEDULE (optional):
[Example: 9:00 ELA, 10:30 Math, 1:15 Science]
Protect student privacy: Don't paste student names, IEP or 504 details, behavior notes, or anything that identifies a student. Write "IEP meeting 2:30," not whose. Follow your school or district's AI and student-data policies, including any rules about sharing curriculum materials.
How to use it
Gather this week's lesson plans (or a quick list), specials, homework, and reminders.
Open ChatGPT, paste the prompt, and replace the parts in [brackets] with your information. A regular chat works. You don't need a ChatGPT Project or a paid plan.
Check the table against your plans, then ask for a printable version.
A made-up third grade week, the kind of one-pager the prompt is built to produce.
Week at a Glance
Week of ________ · 3rd Grade (example)
Swipe the table to see the whole week.
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
ELA
Unit 2, Lesson 1: Animal Features
HW: Read 20 minutes
Unit 2, Lesson 2: Classifying Animals
HW: Read 20 minutes
Unit 2, Lesson 3: Main Idea and Details
HW: Spelling practice
Unit 2, Lesson 4: Compare Two Texts
HW: Read 20 minutes
Spelling test + Unit 2 check-in
Math
Lesson 20: Arrays and Equal Groups
HW: pp. 125-126
Lesson 21: Arrays with Three Factors
HW: pp. 129-130
Lesson 22: Multiply by 10
HW: p. 133
Lesson 23: Multiplication Word Problems
HW: pp. 135-136
Quiz: Lessons 20 to 23
Science / SS
Science, Lesson 5: Butterfly Life Cycle
SS, Lesson 3: Maps and Map Keys
No science (early dismissal)
Science, Lesson 6: Frog Life Cycle
HW: Finish life cycle chart
SS, Lesson 4: Landforms
Specials
Art
PE
Music
Library
PE
Reminders
Picture day forms go home
Staff meeting 3:15
Early dismissal 1:00
Book orders due
Field trip forms due
Example only. Free prompt at getshorthandapp.com/week-at-a-glance
What to paste in
Lesson plans or notes. Full weekly plans work. Paste them as they are and the prompt pulls out the lesson number, topic, and homework for each day. A short list per subject works too. Lesson numbers and page numbers only show up if they're in what you paste.
Specials. Which special is on which day.
Homework. By default it goes inside each subject's box, like the example. Prefer a separate Homework row? Change the HOMEWORK LAYOUT line in the prompt.
Reminders and announcements. Early dismissal, assemblies, forms due, meetings. No student names.
Daily schedule (optional). Add it if you want times on the sheet. Leave it out and the times stay off.
Make it printable
Once the table looks right, send a follow-up like one of these:
"Make it fit on one landscape page with text big enough to read."
"Shorten the lesson titles so everything fits on one page."
"Move homework into its own row at the bottom."
"Make this a Word document I can print, in landscape."
If ChatGPT can't make a file for you, copy the table into Google Docs or Word, set the page to landscape, and print.
Check it before you print
ChatGPT can drop a lesson, move something to the wrong day, or fill a gap with a guess, even when the prompt tells it not to. Take a minute to compare the table with your plans. If something is off, tell it exactly what to fix, like "Thursday math is Lesson 23, not 24, and homework is pages 135 to 136."
Want more free classroom tools?
A report card comment generator, a welcome letter generator, a printable parent communication log, and more ChatGPT prompts like this one.