It’s hard to believe, but another summer is already on its way. For many of our members, this means preparing for the closing of the current school year by creating lessons on how a plant grows, fun seasonal activities, or memorable certificates for soon-to-be grads. It’s an exciting, colorful time, and our abctools have some special features that will liven your class just in time for Spring.
Add Some Art!
Perhaps you’ve noticed the ‘Add/Edit Clip Art on this Page’ link after creating a worksheet. This is an easy way to make your materials more visually compelling, right off the bat.
When clicking this link, your worksheet will be displayed in an editing screen, allowing images to be moved or re-sized. If you don’t have any or want to add more, click the ‘Add New Image’ button. Any graphics from our clip art library can be added to your worksheet, including new images highlighted in the abcteach newsletter. Once chosen, you can alter it as many times as you like, for any worksheet that you create.
Word Lists
Word lists allow you to create various types of documents from a simple list of words. It’s fast and easy: just save your list, and create a number of different styles and types of materials. The worksheets you create can either be for one-time use or saved in your ‘My Documents’ area. This is a quick way to build an entire unit based on a single topic of study. Additionally, abcteach has provided multiple ready-to-use word lists for you to access at your convenience. Click on the ‘Word Lists’ icon (pictured below) or follow the link in the menu on the left side of the members area to get started.
Expand Your Horizons–and your Margins!
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An easy way to customize even further is to reset the margins for all of your abctools’ worksheets. If your printer tends to cut portions off, or you simply want a roomier layout, this is your section. Just click on the ‘Preferences …’ link in the menu on the left side of the members area.
Next, click ‘Edit Tool Preferences.’ Change the margins, click ‘Save’ and you’re done! All of your worksheets will now be updated with the new margins.
As you can see, the possibilities are endless when it comes to creativity in the classroom. We added each of these powerful features to our abctools to make creating worksheets more fun, efficient, and effective. Give them a try, and make some special Spring worksheets for your students! We’d love to hear how they’ve worked out.
Posted by Chris Johnk, abcteach team