Google Slides and Beyond...
Reflecting on Google Slides
Last week I really wanted to challenge myself with using Google Slides in a different way and utilizing more of the tools it has to offer. This week I wanted to take a step further and challenge myself to create an activity for my students that I can use in the classroom.
As I explored the site links this week, I saw many ideas that I would love to utilize with my preschool students. I particularly liked several ideas in 30 Interactive Google Slides for Classroom Excitement. The ones that most interested me included creating a PDF e-book with my students, creating concept memory games, and using the game show formats to create fun concept driven activities. I also really liked the idea of drag and drop activities to create theme based learning concept activities. There were other activities that I would like to explore for professional development such as creating game show activities, creating online courses and creating PDF e-books.
As I explored the site and wrote down the ideas that spoke to me, I realized that my interests far outweighed the time I had to create an activity for this week. So, I gathered the ideas I liked best and thought about which ones would be feasible to complete or get a good start on this week. I was able to narrow down the options to a few I wanted to do in the classroom that would aide my instructional activities for the next few weeks where I could involve my students.
I have been teaching my students this year about books, parts of the book, that the author writes the words of the story and the illustrator draws the pictures, so I really wanted to give them an experience of writing their own book. This led me to the idea of creating a classroom PDF e-book with my students. This week was a great week to start it with our theme being Valentines and what Valentine's Day is all about--showing your friends, family, etc. that you care for them. We talked a lot this week about how to be nice to friends, how to show parents you care for them, etc. It was fitting, then, that we draw pictures of our friends, things we like to do with our friends, why we like our friends and create our very own classroom friend book. It was a simple way to get the book writing process flowing with my preschoolers.
To get things started I first asked my students to draw pictures and/or write about why they like about their school friends. I explained to them they would help me create an e-book, a book we can look at on the computer, with their pictures and dictation. Last week most of my students were able to draw a picture for their friends for our "friend book," and then told us why they like their friends. With the help of my assistants we dictated why each child likes their friends and then set off to actually start creating the book. My assistants took pictures of each child's artwork to use in the book and emailed the pictures to me, I downloaded them to my school computer and we began to create. We sat down at the Smart Board as a group and I explained that we would use Google Slides to create our book together. I showed them examples of things I have that are in Google Slides and talked about how we could use different colors and shapes in our book. After the pictures had downloaded to the computer, I showed the class how to find the pictures and then Insert them onto a slide in Google Slides as a Background by doing this:
1. Click on Slides tab
2. Click on Change Background
3. Click on Choose Image
4. Select image
5. Done
I figured that inserting the pictures of artwork as a background would be the simplest way to show my preschoolers how to do it, this way, I did not have to spend a lot of time sizing the image to fit the slide. Then I clicked on the text box for each slide and began each page with the same beginning "I like my friends because," then left it open for each child to say why they like their friends. I showed them then how to change the background color of the text box by using the paint pot icon and let them choose what color they wanted to use for their page of the book.
There were several children out due to illness and some that had to leave early the days we worked on the book so the whole book is not complete yet, but, we will continue working on the book next week when the other children can contribute. After it is complete I will show the class how we can then turn it into an e-book:
1. Click File
2. Click Download as..
3. Click PDF document
4. It will be saved to the classroom computer!
Even though it is not fully finished I have a link below for the Google Slide of our creation in progress!
Along with learning about books, my preschoolers have been working hard on learning rhyming words. I have several ways in which I teach and let my students practice rhyming words including you tube videos, rhyming houses, rhyming dice, etc. But lately I have been wanting to have an actual activity that my students can do on the Smart Board where they can practice rhyming words. But, I really wanted something that I could pull up and then let them actually do themselves without needing teacher assistance.
Needless to say when I saw the drag and drop activity on 30 Interactive Google Slides for Classroom Excitement and the link for How to Create Drag and Drop Activities for Google Slides I was super excited!! This is exactly what I have been wanting to have for my students. I have to admit that I was nervous to think that I could create something like this myself. After I viewed the You Tube video by Kasey Bell I was shocked and amazed at how simple it looked. Okay so she did use a very simple example without a lot of bells and whistles, but for my class, I do not need a lot of bells and whistles, they would be happy with anything that allows them to manipulate and use the Smart Board on their own. And so it began.
Challenge accepted! This was super simple and easy to create, okay, I used the step by step process You Tube video but still I was really impressed with what I created for my students. Here are the steps I used to create this fun rhyming word activity:
1. Start with clearing out the format of the Google Slide: Right click on slide; Apply layout; Click on the BLANK one
2. Choose the Background; Click on the Background tab and choose colors, shapes, etc,
I just chose a green background for the slide
I just chose a green background for the slide
3. I then chose the shapes I wanted to use to create the actual activity. I wanted to keep it simple but have it colorful and have 3 distinct spaces: 1 for the rhyme pictures (top);
1 for rhyming words with "dog;" and 1 with rhyming words with "bee"
1 for rhyming words with "dog;" and 1 with rhyming words with "bee"
- Top-- I used a rounded corner square and extended it into a rectangle for the student's name and the rhyme pictures to live; I used the paint pot icon to choose the fill color for this box and used the icons for border thickness and color to make the box stand out
- Bottom left--again I used a rounded corner square and used half the bottom space and chose the fill color I wanted.
- Bottom right-- I used rounded square for the other bottom half and chose the fill color and the border and color icons to define the boxes so they are easy to use
4. Next I conducted an image search within slides to find the images I wanted to use for the two rhyming boxes on the bottom (these will not move) and the images that rhyme with them for the top box:
- Click on the INSERT tab
- Hover on image
- Click on "search the web"
- First I wanted to find an image of a dog and bee because those are the words that students will be finding rhyming pictures for: clicked those, sized them then put them where I want them to live on the slide
- Click on File
- Click on Download as
- Click on PNG image I then saved it under a name I would remember so I can go back to it as I want to
7. Now I am ready to do another image search to look for pictures I want to add for the drag and drop portion of the activity. Again I do a search within slides and choose the images I want that rhyme with dog and bee, I did add a couple images that do not rhyme with these for an extra level of challenge for my students.
8. Before introducing the activity to my students I make a copy of it and label it as a
template so I can go back and use it for different activities in the future
template so I can go back and use it for different activities in the future
9. Now it is ready to present to my students!
I had a lot of fun creating this project and it was simple and easy to do. I will definitely use this process to create more activities for my classroom.
*I tried my hand at embedding the Google Slide, check out the bottom of the post*
Projects To Be -- Other Ideas I Will Explore Later*I tried my hand at embedding the Google Slide, check out the bottom of the post*
As I was exploring the activities that can be utilized with Google Slides I came up with many other ideas I want to eventually work on. Below are the projects that have peaked my interest and I want to delve into in the near future:
- Game Shows I have been asked to conduct early childhood professional development trainings so I would like to incorporate the Game Show theme into these as a means for review and a fun way to remember or test participants knowledge on the training topic
- Online Courses I would like to create online courses for the professional development that I am asked to conduct. I think this would make for a great way to present information either in person or as an online training. I am interested to see what this involves and if it would be beneficial for professional development purposes
- Memory Games I would like to create theme based memory games for my students to do on the Smart Board and this may be an easy way to accomplish this goal
