Build a Lesson Plan Slideshow with Craft

As the creator says:

“These lessons have been very clear for the substitute teacher. … Any changes I need to make to the lesson I can do in Craft and the sub will see them :). From the beginning of my teaching career, I’ve been using craft to create beautiful lesson plans for substitute teachers, and now this is its final form!”

Step 1 — Organize Your Lesson Plans in Craft

Create a Craft document for each week of lessons. Structure it with:

Metadata at the top (date, module, duration, lesson goal)
Benchmarks and learning standards (tagged for filtering)
One subpage for each day’s lesson
Subtitles for each section (these become slides)
Ordered lists for detailed steps (these expand into multiple slides)

Step 2 — Enable the Craft API

Generate an API endpoint for your lesson plan document. Each week’s document gets its own API link – this is how the slideshow will pull your content.

Step 3 — Set Up Your Dashboard

Use Lovable, Cursor, or your preferred tool to create a simple dashboard. Lovable makes this easiest – just give it this prompt:

I need a landing page that functions as a resource for students and a slidedeck for me using my Craft lesson plans. The lesson plans should populate slides, be organized by date, lesson name, and module, and contain a list of resources used.

Then paste in your Craft API link. The tool will build the dashboard for you.

Step 4 — Deploy Your Site

Host your dashboard on GitHub Pages, Vercel, or any hosting service. Add your domain through Cloudflare or your registrar so you have a professional URL.

Step 5 — Configure Your Settings

In the dashboard settings, you can:

Change the theme and colors
Create blacklists to hide certain sections from slides
Filter out resource images so they don't clutter your presentation
Customize what appears for students vs. what you see

Step 6 — Import Your Lessons

Click the “Import Lessons” button in your dashboard. The system recursively goes through your Craft document and creates slides from every subtitle. If a subtitle has an ordered list, it breaks that into separate slides automatically.

Step 7 — Present and Update

Present your slides directly from the dashboard. Here’s the magic part: if you update your Craft lesson plan, the slides update automatically – no re-importing needed. Your substitute teacher sees the changes in real-time.

What Your Students See

A clean, professional resource page with:

Today’s lesson – Quick link to the current lesson with resources
Unit overview – What module you’re currently teaching
Resource list – All materials used in today’s lesson
Upcoming lessons – What’s coming next
Archive – Past lessons organized by date

What You See When Teaching

Your presentation slides, automatically generated from your lesson plan:

Everything stays in sync with your Craft document
Each subtitle becomes a slide
Ordered lists expand into multiple slides
YouTube videos embed automatically
A timer is available for pacing

The Result

You spend less time on administrative tasks and more time on what actually matters – teaching and supporting your students. Your lesson plans stay organized in Craft, your slides stay in sync automatically, and your substitute teachers have everything they need to teach your class while you’re away.