As the school year begins to wrap up, I have a few final things to share with you.

The first is a reminder about the amazing opportunities to network with other teachers in your grade level across the country, and beyond, through the teachers’ clubs on Ning. You’ll find discussion forums, blogs, and live chats available, where you can share lesson ideas, teaching strategies, classroom management suggestions, and more.

• Kindergarten: http://kindergartenteacherslounge.ning.com
• First Grade: http://first-grade-teachers.ning.com
• Second Grade: http://second-grade-teachers.ning.com
• Third Grade: http://third-grade-teachers.ning.com
• Fourth Grade: http://fourth-grade-teachers.ning.com
• Fifth Grade: http://fifth-grade-teachers.ning.com

Next, is a list of great Mac keyboard shortcuts. These are ways to help you do something using your keyboard instead of going through various menus. One example of this that most of you know is Command/Apple + S as a way to save. An extensive list is available from the Apple website, Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcuts. http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1343

Finally, every once in a while I figure out something on the computer, and then can’t believe it took me so long to realize it. I had not one, but two of those moments this weekend, while working on something in Pages.

The first was when I was once again annoyed by the fact that I had to go in and change the margin settings, remove the header and footer – that gives me more space in which to write, and change the font on a new document. I did a quick Google search (it’s really a great way to find help!) and realized that there was a way that I could easily set up a document the way I wanted, and have it be a template I could select to use each time I wanted to. Here’s how:

1. Start Pages
2. Select a new blank word processing document
3. Change the margins to the desired settings
4. Change/remove the header and footer as desired
5. Select the font face, size, and style you want
6. Make any other changes you want
7. Click on File
8. Select Save as Template
9. Name it something that is short but descriptive (it should automatically go to your My Templates folder)
10. Click on Save

The next time you start Pages, look at the section on the left side of the Template Chooser (that’s what you see when you start Pages), and click one time on the header, My Templates. You’ll see the template you saved on the right side. Double click on that and you should be good to go.

The second moment occurred when I was tired of scrolling through a long list of fonts, and wished I could have the ones I wanted in a list showing in the Fonts panel. As soon as I looked up how to do it, and found it had to do with font favorites, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t figured it out sooner! Here’s how you can avoid scrolling through a long list of fonts, and set the size, style, and font face you like to appear in the Favorites collection.

1. Start Pages
2. Select a new blank word processing document
3. Click the icon for the Fonts panel to open
4. From the list of fonts, click on the font name, style, and size you want (ex: Comic Sans, Regular, 14)
5. At the bottom of the font panel you’ll see three buttons: a plus sign, a minus sign, and a wheel/gear looking thing. Click on the gear button.
6. Select Add to Favorites

Now whenever you go to the Fonts panel, click the Favorites collection on the left, and you’ll see whatever you’ve added to it. You can add as many fonts as you’d like, and no more scrolling through a huge list to find the ones that you like!

It’s Groundhog Day! This year Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, so that means six more weeks of winter!

Looking for an activity or two to do for Groundhog Day? Venture over to Enchanted Learning’s Groundhog Day page. They have some cute printables.  If you don’t remember our district login and password please drop me an email.

If you’re looking for an interactive lesson, use our Making Words or Wilson Letters templates for the SmartBoard and see how many words your students can make out of “groundhog” or “Punxsutawney.”   Older elementary students could work together in small groups for a contest to see who can make the most words. Of course they have to be real words, so they’ll want to use dictionary.com or the dictionary available on their Dock to verify the words.

Here’s a cute Groundhog Day song and video, sure to make your students giggle.