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Pear Start can generate a lesson that becomes a Pear Deck interactive presentation. This article explains how to move content from Pear Start to Pear Deck and what to do if the handoff does not work as expected.

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Before You Start

  • You need an active Pear Start account and an active Pear Deck account, both using the same Google account.
  • Your district must have both Pear Start and Pear Deck as part of its Pear Deck Learning plan.

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Generate a Lesson in Pear Start

  1. Sign in to Pear Start at start.peardeck.com.
  2. Click Create and select Instant Lesson Package.
  3. Enter your topic, grade level, and the standard you are teaching.
  4. Click Generate.
  5. Wait for Pear Start to draft the lesson. Generation typically takes 20 to 60 seconds.
  6. Review the generated content. Edit any slides, prompts, or questions before exporting.
Pear Start drafts content for your review. Review and edit the lesson before presenting it to students. Pear Start does not verify accuracy, standards alignment, or age-appropriateness — those are confirmed by you during review.

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Export the Lesson to Pear Deck

  1. In the generated lesson, click Open in Pear Deck.
  2. If the Open in Pear Deck option is not available, click Export to Google Slides instead. The lesson saves to your Google Drive as a Google Slides file.
  3. Open the exported Google Slides file.
  4. Click Extensions > Pear Deck for Google Slides Add-on > Open Pear Deck Add-on.
  5. The Pear Deck sidebar opens. Your slides are ready to use as a Pear Deck lesson.

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Add Interactive Question Types

Slides exported from Pear Start are static by default. To make them interactive in Pear Deck:
  1. In Google Slides with the Pear Deck sidebar open, select a slide.
  2. In the sidebar, choose a question type: multiple choice, text, draggable, drawable, or number.
  3. Pear Deck adds an interactive layer to the slide.
You do not need to add interactive questions to every slide. Informational slides without a question type display as static slides during the session.

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Present the Lesson

  1. In the Pear Deck sidebar, click Start Lesson.
  2. Choose Teacher-Paced or Student-Paced.
  3. Share the join code with students.

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Troubleshoot the Pear Start to Pear Deck Handoff

The “Open in Pear Deck” button does nothing: Sign out of both Pear Start and Pear Deck and sign back in with the same Google account. Then retry. The exported Google Slides file is empty: The export may have failed silently. Return to Pear Start, open the lesson, and export again. Check Google Drive > Recent for the file. The Pear Deck sidebar does not load in the exported Google Slides: The Pear Deck for Google Slides add-on may not be installed. Install it from the Google Workspace Marketplace, then reload Google Slides. For more loading issues, see Pear Deck Won’t Load: Teacher and IT Admin Checklist.
Last modified on July 16, 2026