Archive for February, 2009

How to Make a Banner Using Publisher

Several people have asked how to use Publisher to make banners for titles for classroom displays. I’ve provided some basic instructions but do scroll down to my quick tip for busy teachers before you start!
Publisher can be set up to print continuously on several sheets of paper. As ever with software things vary with the edition you have, have a play and see what you can come up with. Just watch out that images and some WordArt will distort if used in very large banners.

  1. Open Publisher through the “Start” menu or double click the icon on the Desktop. Click “File” and “New” from the top menus after the program has opened. Give it a relevant title and save.
  2. Choose Blank Publications. From the drop down list select “Banner”. An example will appear on the right hand side of the window.
  3. Select a size larger than 8.5-by-11 inches in Page Setup . You can choose up to 240″ in Publisher 2007. This will spread your banner over several pages.
  4. Select a design from the examples on the right hand side. Publisher has several templates but most won’t be suitable for school. Choose “Blank” to start from scratch. (To use a template just double click it and it will appear in your banner.)
  5. Left click the “Insert” and “Picture” to add a design, photo or a clip art.
  6. Choose “Insert” then “Text Box” to add your text. Click the mouse where you want the box to start in the banner. Have a good play with fonts, sizes colours etc at this stage. Make sure it looks clear.
  7. Select “File,” “Print,” then “Properties” to use the Landscape option to rotate your paper.
  8. Choose “File” and “Print Preview” at any point during the design process to make sure everything is as you want it.
  9. Only when you are really happy with the banner, print it out. You will have to stick the A4 pages together to make the banner.

What’s your favourite software for creating titles for classroom displays?

Quick  Tip For Busy Teachers – Buy Pre-cut letters from Classroom Capers and spend your valuable time on something else!


Tags: ,

Classroom Displays on the blogs

Classroom Tree

Karens Violetbliss: Classroom Displays

Found this lovely classroom display in my travels round the blogs. Karen says:

Our veteran teacher, Melanie, but together this display which includes artwork from all of our programs from the 2 year olds fruit, the three year olds paper plate turtles and an art that I did with the kindergartens of the old tortoise using watercolor paint and a saran wrap wrinkle effect to create the cracks of the old tortoise.

I like this very much, especially the tortoises.I think it has worked really well. It’s lovely to see so many people starting blogs and including photos of their classroom displays.

Tags:

Making big images for displays

Enlarging and Printing Images for Classroom Displays

On a recent training day I gave, one of the most popular sections was using the Blockposter web site to make really big images for classroom displays.

The site is really easy to use and pretty straight-forward. It often gives a better result than the old fashioned way of drawing big images using an overhead projector, though for simple images that still has a place.

Tags: ,