Creating & Managing Activities

You now know how to create and configure every type of activity — from AI-generated to manual, from standalone to plan-embedded, from regular lessons to training modules. Next: putting it all together with editing, fine-tuning, and best practices.

By Smart Moves Tutor
Smart Moves Tutorials
Part of Content Creation
Public

Lesson Steps

Overview
1
Creating a New Activity
2
Linking Activities to Skill Levels
3
AI Prompt & Generation Settings for Activities
4
Training Module Activities
5
Optional Settings & Image Generation
6
How Activities Embed in Plans
Show All Steps

Lesson Overview

📌 Welcome to Lesson 4

Activities (also called Steps in the system) are the individual building blocks of every lesson plan. Each activity represents a specific segment of a lesson — a warm-up drill, a skill practice, a game, a cool-down, etc.

In this lesson you'll master all the settings on the Activity creation form.

By the end of this lesson you will be able to:

  • ✅ Create standalone activities and activities within plans
  • ✅ Configure all activity fields including phase, duration, and skill links
  • ✅ Link activities to skill levels and specific skills
  • ✅ Use AI to generate activity content
  • ✅ Set up training module activities
  • ✅ Understand how activities embed in plans

đŸ–ŧī¸ Image Placeholder

Screenshot of the Create New Activity form showing all sections: Basic Information, AI Generation Settings, Instructor Training Module, Optional Settings, and Sharing & Pricing

Get Started
Step 1 of 6

Creating a New Activity

Step 1

📌 Step 1: Start a New Activity

Two Ways to Create an Activity

📄 From a Plan

Open your lesson plan, click "Add Activity". The activity is automatically linked to that plan.

📌 Standalone

Go to Activities → Add Activity (or /step/add). Creates an independent activity you can add to plans later.

📋 Basic Information

Field Required Description Example
Activity TypeYes ⭐Short keyword describing the type of activity. Used by the AI and for content discovery. Keep it to 1–3 words.Swimming Drill, Math Exercise, Yoga Pose
Activity NameYes ⭐The title of this specific activity. Be descriptive.Front Crawl Arm Movement Drill, Adding Fractions Practice
DurationNoHow long this activity takes within the lesson. Free-text.10 minutes, 15 min
PhaseNoA grouping tag for this activity within the lesson. Helps instructors understand the lesson flow.Warm Up, Main Set, Cool Down, Welcome

đŸ–ŧī¸ Image Placeholder

Screenshot of the Activity Basic Information card showing Activity Type, Activity Name, Duration, and Phase fields

💡 Tip: The Phase field is purely organisational — it helps structure the lesson into logical segments. Common phases: Welcome, Warm Up, Skill Work, Game/Practice, Cool Down, Dismiss.
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Step 2 of 6

Linking Activities to Skill Levels

Step 2

đŸŽ¯ Step 2: Skill Level & Skills Linking

This is a powerful feature for companies using the Skill Tracking system. You can link an activity to specific skills in your skill framework.

ℹī¸ Info: Skill linking is only available to company users. If you don't see these fields, you may not have a company account.

Skill Level Selection

The Skill Level dropdown shows all skill levels for your company (and parent company):

  1. Select the relevant skill level from the dropdown
  2. If no skill levels exist, you'll see a prompt to create one
  3. Links to Create Skill Level and Manage Skill Levels are provided

Skills Checkboxes

After selecting a skill level, checkboxes appear for each individual skill within that level:

  1. Check the specific skills that this activity teaches or assesses
  2. This links the activity to those skills
  3. When instructors use skill tracking during class, the system can filter to show only skills covered in the current activity

đŸ–ŧī¸ Image Placeholder

Screenshot showing the Skill Level dropdown set to 'Level 1: Water Confidence' and below it a grid of skill checkboxes like 'Front Float', 'Back Float', 'Kicking', 'Breathing' with some checked

Why Link Skills?

  • 📊 When an instructor opens skill tracking for a session, they can filter by the lesson plan's activities to see only the relevant skills
  • 📋 Helps with curriculum mapping — you can see which skills are covered across your entire program
  • đŸŽ¯ Ensures complete coverage — no skill goes untaught
💡 Tip: You don't need to link every activity to skills. Only link activities where specific skill teaching or assessment happens — like 'Main Skill Work' or 'Assessment'. Warm-ups and games typically don't need skill links.
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Step 3 of 6

AI Prompt & Generation Settings for Activities

Step 3

🤖 Step 3: AI Generation for Activities

Activities have the same AI generation system as plans and programs.

Prompt — Aims and Goals

For activities, the prompt should be very specific about what this single segment of the lesson involves:

✅ Good Activity Prompt

"A 10-minute warm-up activity for beginner swimmers aged 5-7. Include: walking across the pool, bobbing up and down, splashing water on face and shoulders, and a quick game of 'Simon Says' with water-based commands. Keep the energy high and encourage splashing. Safety note: stay in shallow end."

Activity-Specific Settings

Setting Description
Output LanguageLanguage for the generated content. Default: English.
Access StatusPrivate, Public, Paid, or Company visibility for this activity.
Style to CopyCopy the structure and style of an existing activity. The dropdown shows other activities you own.
đŸĒ„ Write PromptAI-assisted prompt writing, same as programs and plans.
⚠ī¸ Important: Unlike plans, activities do NOT have a separate 'custom structure' grid — they are the lowest level. An activity's content is a single block of rich HTML content.
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Step 4 of 6

Training Module Activities

Step 4

👨‍đŸĢ Step 4: Training Module Activities

Expand the Instructor Training Module section to see the module checkbox.

When to Mark an Activity as a Module

Check "This is an Instructor Training Module Activity" when:

  • The activity is part of an instructor training lesson plan
  • You want the AI to generate instructor-development focused content
  • The content teaches how to teach rather than being student-facing

Module Activity vs Regular Activity

Regular ActivityContent is student-facing — drills, exercises, games, assessments
Module ActivityContent is for instructor development — teaching techniques, safety procedures, assessment methods, classroom management
💡 Tip: If the parent plan is already marked as a module, it's good practice to mark the activities as modules too for consistent AI generation.
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Step 5 of 6

Optional Settings & Image Generation

Step 5

⚙ī¸ Step 5: Optional Activity Settings

Expand the Optional Settings card for additional controls.

Setting Description
Parent ProgramLink this standalone activity to a program. The dropdown shows all your programs. Activities typically belong to plans rather than directly to programs, but this is available for organisation.
Image StyleThe visual style for AI-generated images. Choose from options like photorealistic, illustration, cartoon, etc.
Full AI GenerationWhen checked, the AI generates the activity's full content when you save. Uncheck for a blank activity.
Generate ImagesAI-generates a contextual image for this activity.

đŸ–ŧī¸ Image Placeholder

Screenshot of the Optional Settings card for an activity showing Parent Program dropdown, Image Style dropdown, Full AI Generation checkbox, and Generate Images checkbox

Sharing & Pricing

Activities have the same sharing options as plans:

  • Access Filters — restrict visibility within your company
  • View Price — cost to view (tip vs purchase pricing)
  • Clone Price — cost to copy (buyers can modify; you get 30% on resales)
ℹī¸ Info: Individual activity pricing is useful when selling standalone activities on the marketplace — like a unique game, drill, or exercise that's valuable on its own.
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Step 6 of 6

How Activities Embed in Plans

Step 6

🔗 Step 6: Activities & Plan Embedding

Understanding how activities relate to plans is crucial for managing your content effectively.

The Dual-Storage System

When an activity belongs to a plan, it exists in two places:

📌 Standalone Activity

The full activity document in the database with its own ID, accessible at /step/view/:id. This is the "source of truth" for editing.

📄 Embedded Copy in Plan

A copy of the activity data embedded in the plan's steps array. This is what gets displayed when viewing the plan.

What This Means for Editing

  • When you edit an activity, the changes should propagate to its plan's embedded copy
  • Use the "Push Changes" feature to update all plans that reference this activity
  • Each embedded step stores: id, title, name, description, content, phase, field, and hasGenerated
⚠ī¸ Important: If you edit a plan's embedded step directly (from the plan's edit view), those changes might not update the standalone activity. For consistency, always edit the standalone activity and push changes.

Reordering Activities

Within a plan, activities are ordered by their position in the embedded steps array. You can reorder them from the plan's edit/view page by dragging or using the reorder controls.

💡 Tip: Think of standalone activities as 'master copies' and plan embeddings as 'instances'. Update the master, push to instances.
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