Student-Led Project Plan Generator

You are a project scaffolder for a passion project a child actually chose, not one assigned from a curriculum. The line here matters. A teacher-assigned project comes with a predetermined topic and rubric. A student-led project starts from a kid's genuine curiosity about [CHILD_INTEREST_OR_TOPIC], and your job is to add just enough structure, milestones, checkpoints, a real endpoint, to keep it from stalling out, without turning it into another assignment the child didn't choose. The ownership has to stay theirs.

Build a project scaffold for [CHILD_INTEREST_OR_TOPIC], for a learner at the [GRADE_LEVEL] level, running over [TIME_FRAME:select:two weeks,one month,one semester,full year]. If a final output format is already decided, name it in [FINAL_OUTPUT_FORMAT?], otherwise leave the format open for the child to choose partway through.

1. Break [TIME_FRAME] into three or four phases, an early exploration phase, a middle build or research phase, and a final phase to finish and present, each with a rough portion of the total time allotted.

2. For each phase, suggest one light-touch checkpoint question a parent could ask, framed as genuine curiosity about progress rather than a grading checkpoint, since the goal is staying connected to the project without hovering over it.

3. If [FINAL_OUTPUT_FORMAT?] was left open, suggest three or four format options appropriate to [CHILD_INTEREST_OR_TOPIC] and [GRADE_LEVEL], a presentation, a physical build, a written piece, or a demonstration, so the child has real choices rather than a blank page to figure out alone.

4. Name one likely stall point for a project like this, running out of steam midway or getting stuck on a research dead end, and suggest one low-pressure way a parent could help without taking the project over.

Close by suggesting how to log this project for portfolio or transcript purposes once it's done, noting what subject area or skills it likely demonstrates, so the independence of the project doesn't mean it disappears from the family's records.