What Happened to PowerPoint Skills for Students?

Hey awesome readers! Hope your school year is off to a good start. I'm about 6 weeks in and finally starting to feel like I can breathe. Anyway, I want to share with you a foolproof method to getting your students comfortable (and even independent) in using Microsoft PowerPoint. 

This is ideal for 2nd or 3rd grade students who are capable of reading (to find the right places to click) and enjoy learning by video. It starts with an instructional video and PPT template for adding slides and changing slide layouts. 

 So the students watch the video and then practice each skill in a pre-created PPT template. They go through the exact steps in the video until they have completed all of the tasks. Basic. Simple. Done.

The next lesson has them learn to change the font, color, size, etc. for each prompt. There is an adorable little graphic to help them choose the type of font and the color scheme. This could also be a good time to talk about design (what colors look good together). Again, instructional video, PPT template, voila!

The third and final lesson shows them how to add pictures. Depending on the version of PPT you're using, the instructional video may not apply, but the template will work with any version. I provide 4 slides with prompts and students follow the directions from the video to complete the tasks (and they even get to be creative). So there you have it, a 3-step system to help your students learn the tools in PPT so that they can create a presentation independently. If you're interested in having them complete more advanced tasks in PPT, I have a unit for that with 14 lessons and it even includes related paper activities! I know, I thought of everything :-)

So how do you get your hands on these? Click here for the 3-lesson beginners unit. If you want it all, click here for the 14 lesson unit.

Thank you so much for reading, friends. What projects do you like to do in PowerPoint? Let me know!