10 Page Stories to PDF files

For some reason the Publisher files are still huge as PDF files.  One child's file was reasonable, the others have been huge.  I changed the PDF file to a standard file which made it much smaller, but I'm concerned about the quality of the print.

Ten Page Stories

Ten page stories are actually nine pages now, but I'm so used to calling them ten page stories the kids just let me get by with it.  This year we started the stories on the computers instead of writing them on paper first.  Students would write, print, edit with me, fix on the computer, write the next page, and go through the process over and over until each page had "done" written on it.  Page 1 is the setting of the story; page 2 is all about the character.  (This is the page that used to be two pages.)    The character should be described physically and by using character traits.  Page 3 is the first event of the story; page 4 is the problem.  Page 5, 6, and 7 are all events trying to solve the problem.  Page 8 solves the problem.  Page 9 ends the story.  I have a list of banned words for each page.  Some of them include you, I, so, me, and many more.

Students are drawing illustrations for their pages.  I taught them how to scan and they are scanning their pictures as they get them done.  They know how to edit the pictures and they are inserting them into their document.  (We used Publisher.)    After we have all of the pictures inserted we will save the document as a PDF file and upload it to the publisher.  Each child will get a free paperback copy of their illustrated story.  They are pretty excited about being a published author.

New Google Search Stories

Next week we are going to create new Google Search Stories on the topic of immigrants to Kansas.  Each pair of students will be assigned a group to research.  They will "search" where the group came from, where they settled in Kansas, why they left their homeland, why they came to Kansas, what they found when they came to Kansas and when they came to Kansas.  We will use the Read Kansas cards from the Kansas State Historical Society for our research.  If we didn't have two district assessments pressing on us we would do more research and probably some other activities with the information.  (Don't get me started on all of the assessments and the time they take from learning.)

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