How To Format Your PowerPoint Slides to Portrait

Much like many of my Teachers Pay Teacher'ers, I'm gearing up for my Las Vegas trip this week. I am excited to be going with my friend Mercedes Hutchens from Surfing to Success. She is a wealth of knowledge on Vegas. She has created an amazing FREEBIE for those of us (like myself) who have never been!

So with that in mind, it got me to thinking (aside from the fact that I've seriously been neglecting my blog lately) that there are tutorials I haven't gotten around to yet. I've been asked several times "How do you set up PowerPoint to make worksheets?" Well, here's my latest video tutorial on how to do just that!

Task Cards

Okay, so task cards are new to me. I've seen them posted for the people I follow, but never really checked them out. Today I was hanging out with a friend who showed me some she uses in her classroom. All I could think of was BRILLIANT!!!

If you aren't familiar with how these work, there are enough cards for each student desk. You place one on each desk. Students then walk about the room answering the questions (or tasks) on their answer sheet.

Seriously brilliant! My friend says you can use these not just as an activity during language arts time, but as a finish early task as well. Or she has some that she put on an O ring and flips through them to have the kids answer as they walk out the door. Another brilliant idea!

I'm thinking, you could use them as a PowerPoint warm up on the Promethean Board, or as part of board language. If you cut them out then laminate them, they'll last even longer! I made these tonight and I can't wait to try these out in the next few weeks! Check them out by clicking on the picture below.

PowerPoint Games

A new year tends to bring new ideas and new goals. Tonight's goal was to clean up my e-mail inbox. Going through the 2,000+ unread forgotten e-mails, I came across one that I had been meaning to look at, but never really did. One such e-mail is a diamond in the rough.

A long time friend of mine knew I was in search of games for my students to play using my Promethean Board. She teaches high school back east and sent me some links to sites that have great resources. I feel it's important to share them with you.

The first site is UNCW.EDU/EDUGAMES. These are free templates for you to use in your classroom. She said that her students love the "What's Behind the Box?" game. Here's an example of the one I made. I plan on using this game to introduce our next science unit on weather.

To add your own picture (the templates are blank behind the boxes), simply click on the "Format" tab and then on "slide background". Then choose the tab at the left to say "fill" and the tab at the top to say "picture or texture". Next, click "choose picture". This will allow you to choose any of the pictures you have downloaded or saved onto your computer or thumb drive.

The other site she recommends is JC-Schools.net. This site has free templates of games that are crafted after game shows including Pyramid, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?. Jeopardy is a great game to play as a review of lessons taught.

The Jeopardy game is a little more technical, and will take a little time to set up, but worth it in the end. I recommend saving a template as well as a custom made one so that you can keep that topic and create a new one based on a new topic.

I am excited to create these games for the kids to use! If you find other games, feel free to post them in the comments section. Also, be sure to stop by my giveaway on Teacher's Notebook, and my 20% off sale on Teachers Pay Teachers!

How To Make a Border Using PowerPoint (Mac)

So the newest rage among my teacher friends is to create borders using PowerPoint. HOWEVER, it seems to be a hidden secret because most people want to sell them online. So I did a tiny bit of research today and discovered the newest rage is pretty simple!

1. Open PowerPoint to a new presentation. Make sure you don't have a background, it's just a plain old white template.

2. Delete any words/text boxes you have. This will make it easier to work with.

3. Click on the "Insert" tab at the top.

4. Scroll down to "shapes". Choose a rectangle.

5. Make the rectangle almost as large as the slide.

6. Click on the "Insert" tab at the top again.

7. Make another rectangle, but slightly smaller than first (inside of the first rectangle).

8. Click on the inside (smaller) rectangle to highlight it. Then where it shows a fill bucket, click it and click on the color white.

9. Click on the area between the two rectangles (should look the start of a border).

10. Where it says, "Fill" (should be the same place as the bucket), click on that. Then click on "Fill Effects".

11.  Click on "Pattern". Choose a pattern. I chose a checkerboard pattern for this.

12. To change the color, click where you have clicked on the pattern, choose "Change background color" and pick your color.

Rather than creating a whole bunch of slides independently, to save you time, click on your slide then choose the "Insert" tab and choose "duplicate slide". Another slide should pop up. To have a different color slide (for selling purposes, say), start at step 9 and continue the process. This will save you a TON of time!

Play around with it, you can even choose a photo you have taken and use it instead of the already created patterns! Enjoy!

Teachers Pay Teachers

So I've stumbled across this great site called Teachers Pay Teachers. It's pretty brilliant. Teachers sign up and can sell items they have created or buy items from other teachers. The money goes into your PayPal account, and that's it!

I don't know how many hours I've spent over the years creating things that I thought, "Wow, I wish I could sell that!" Well, now I can!

My problem tonight though is that all my files are on my work computer...BOOO!!! I need to utilize Dropbox more. So, in a pinch, I decided to sort of recreate something I made last year for my fifth graders, but change it for first graders. It's a Powerpoint used as either a writing center or as a whole class writing prompt. I call it "Pick a Prompt". The kids liked it because they felt like they were in charge of their learning. I liked it because it was 5 days' worth of writing wrapped up in one nice little PowerPoint!

I'm hoping to make more items that I can not only use for my classroom, but be able to offer them to other teachers. My goal is to make a little extra cash to help out my struggling family. Wish me luck!