Fun Friday: iPads in the classroom, getting started

If you are lucky enough to have an ipad in your classroom, have access to an ipad cart, or bring your own, I've found some great ideas to establish rules.  Next week, I'm going to share some new apps that I've found (and used).

For the following resources, please click on whichever you would like to go directly to the creator's Teachers Pay Teachers page to download.  They are all free.

Starting off, we have this cute little organizational freebie for teachers.  It gives great suggestions on how to store, assign, suggest apps (if you have to do that to the tech department or whomever to purchase for you)

The Title 1 Reading Specialists at my school and I have been sharing items we found online, and one item that we found was this iPad contract (rules) / checklist with items that students need to do to show they know how to use the iPad / certificate of completion

Then we have these two different iPad rule printables:

I hope these freebies are helpful!  Next week, I'd like to share various apps that I've found recently that I really love.  They are quite the variety---fluency, formative assessment, letter formation, writing and more! 

Please note that I did not create any of these items, I am not taking credit for creating them, I just think they are great resources.  That is why I have linked directly to the creators Teacher Pay Teacher site so you can download them yourself.

How to: Download fun fonts

I had some people comment (either on the post, on twitter or facebook) last week on my HELP WANTED on Teachers Pay Teachers post asking, "How do you download those fancy fonts?"  So I thought today, I'd share a little tutorial on how.

Bear with me, I'm going to try and get screenshots of each step.  This tutorial is for a PC, not a mac.  I'm not as proficient on a mac.  But, if you have a specific question, I'd be more than happy to play around and get back to you (just email me)

1.  Open your internet browser.

2.  Search "free downloadable fonts" or something specific, like "Harry Potter font" or "Snowy font".  We're going to search "free handwriting fonts."  I've seen some pretty ones on pinterest (follow the link and pick up on step 4). There is also a blog, Kevin and Amanda, who has great free fonts.  Today, we're going to use something from Kevin and Amanda.

3.  Pick a font you like.  I picked Pea Stitchasaurus Rex

4.  Download.  Save to your desktop.  Depending on your computer, you may have to go into the "Downloads" file to then save to the desktop. 

5.  It will be a zip file.  Unzip it.  To do that, click "Install"

Now, on my computer at home, I'm finished after this step.  I can even delete the file now off my desktop as it's already been installed.  That doesn't mess anything up.  I can skip straight to step #9.

On my school computer, I have to do the following steps.  

6.  Open up your control panel on the "Start" menu

7.  Go to "Appearances and Personalization".  Open the fonts folder

8.  Drag and drop the unzipped file.

9.  Enjoy!

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.  I'd be more than happy to help! 

Update: Teachers Pay Teachers help

Aka, how to do that cutesy stuff on TPT!  And, did you know you can use these tips to create blog backgrounds and headers?  NOW YOU DO!!!!!!!!!  In fact, I'm currently working on one, and hope to debut it soon!  But I digress...

Teacher/Blogger Mme. Tammy Aiello (Teaching FSL) commented on my Help! post saying:

Use a page layout program (Like Publisher) instead of Word... or a trick many use it to do everything in PowerPoint. Since you are likely to convert it to a PDF document anyhow, use whatever makes it easiest for you to design!
As for cute borders & pictures, check the "clip art" category of TpT itself... some awesome clip-artists that I <3 are The 3AM teacher, Tracee Orman, Graphics from the Pond, Pink Cat Studio. I use a LOT of free stuff, and some paid items (mostly from those creators).

So, if I'm understanding her correctly, there are people that already have those cute borders and clip arts for free on TPT, you would download them, and then use something like Publisher (or Photoshop---had a couple people suggest that too) so maneuver and make your stuff all pretty.

I also found this tutorial online on how to upload your own background images to blogger.  You'll need to read this one, too.

And, on this lady's Teachers Pay Teachers site is a tutorial on how to create headers.  It's free and really simple to use.  It was called "Frame Backgrounds and Transparent Frames".

Using those tutorials (and I have to say, I was skeptical to use Powerpoint to create something, but it totally worked!  You just save it as a PDF rather than a slideshow), I created this invite for my school's Relay for Life team "Souper Bowl" party on Friday. 

 I got the borders from here, and the cute little football graphic here.  The fancy font is from here.

Update:  It is the same for a PC or Mac.  I did the following graphic as an update since we're off school today (Friday).  The borders and graphics are from the above mentioned places.  The font is just one that came with the computer.

Stay tuned tomorrow for my step by step tutorial on how to download the fancy fonts!

Teachers Pay Teachers

I don't know if you have used it yet, but Teachers Pay Teachers is my go-to site for "cool" worksheets, printables, games, anchor chart ideas, you name it!  And a lot of it is free! 

I have two plugs: 

1.  Go visit my store!  I have some fun stuff that I've uploaded.

2.  Does anyone know how to make that cutesy stuff like you see on there?  I have no idea how to do the cute pictures, borders, etc (fonts I do know), but everything else is a mystery!  How do you do it?