Saying Goodbye: End of Year Powerpoints

I have found a valuable teacher helper in PowerPoint, especially since we got interactive whiteboards in our school. I have used it  for presentations,obviously, but also to make interactive board games, even to make the poetry videos for our Poetry Club. The ways that one can use PowerPoint are endless, one may even say that it has become obsolete by now, however I find the possibilities it offers intriguing. This year I have used PowerPoint to make interactive goodbye gifts for my classes. In this post I will try to explain how. 

To begin with, you need a version of PowerPoint, it doesn't have to be the latest one. You will also need a template that you can find online. I used one from fppt.com. Then I used text boxes to create my first slide menu. Here is what it looks like:

First slide: Our Class

OUR PHOTOS SECTION

Then, I made a second slide containing all the students' names. Using a hyperlink I connected it to the first slide. Then I went back to the First Slide and using again a hyperlink I connected the "Our Photos" text box to the Second Slide. I have changed the student names in the photo that follows. 

Second Slide: Our Class Photos
(linked to 1st Slide)

Afterwards, I made twelve slides, one for each child, to contain a collage of their photographs. Each  page was then linked to the second slide. Each text box with the child's name was linked to the child's page. So when you click on M******'s box, it takes you to his personal photo page, and back to the main Our Class Photos page. For the photo collages I used a free photo collage maker that I found online.  Here is what their photo collages look like:

And here is what a child's personal page looks like:

Sample Personal Page. Each child
has its own photo page,
which is linked to the
second slide: Our Photos.

Clicking on the name takes you back to the second slide: Our Class Photos. Clicking on the tiny house picture on the bottom right-hand corner takes you back to the main menu, the first slide. 

ALL ABOUT US SECTION 

For this section I used a freebie from Teachers Pay Teachers, which the children filled in. I found it through the following blog:

http://theartofteachingut.blogspot.com/2011/06/dr-seuss-all-about-me-book.html

Once the children filled the handout in, I scanned it and using a flipbook maker, I turned it into a flipbook, which I embedded in the PowerPoint presentation. 

OUR POEMS SECTION

When you click on the Our Poems tab on the first slide, you are taken to the page below.Each box contains the name of one of my students. Each box is also a link to the child's poem page. 

This slide is linked to
the first one.
It contains links to the
children's poem pages. 

There are twelve Poem pages all linked back to the above slide. This is what they look like:

Personal Poem page.
Linked to the
 "Our Poems" Page. 

The headline is a link to the "Our Poems" page. 

OUR BOOKS SECTION

In this section I have included projects that the children have done based on the books we read together this year. Clicking on the "Our Books" tab on the first slide takes you to the following page:

Each photo is a link to a Flash Flipbook containing the children's work.

GALLERY SECTION 

Clicking on the Gallery cloud on the first slide takes you to this page. Here I have included a Flash photo flipbook, containing photos, projects, games in an exe file. It also contains video presentations of the children's work. 

The final product resembles a DVD menu. 

You might also like:

Saying Goodbye: End of Year Activities.