Publisher is one of the Microsoft Office tools that can be overlooked as an educational resource for the classroom. As students create newsletters, brochures, posters, charts, certificates and postcards they practice the skills of gathering facts, organizing information, and communicating with others.
Activity:
This activity creates a brochure of a city that informs, educates and persuades its readers to visit.
- Before starting the activity, you may want to watch this video about Designing a Page in Publisher. If you haven’t already, you may also want to select a new default printer.
- Download the example of a completed brochure. Edmonds Brochure (.pdf)
- Read the directions for Getting Started
- Open Publisher and begin creating your own brochure.
- If needed, use this information for the brochure: Text and Pictures
Publisher Lesson Plans:
Olympics/Brochure
Students will research past Olympic games for event highlights, athletes, host city and country, and emblem and medal designs for the games. With the information they will create a brochure that informs and educates the readers about Olympic games around the world. This would be a great activity since the 2010 Winter Olympic in Vancouver BC.
Road Trip/Postcards
Students plan a two week road trip to various cities in Washington and research information about the location, miles driven, interesting sights and pictures. Using Publisher postcards the students will share the interesting information about that each city. This lesson plan uses Microsoft MapPoint to find the miles driven but you can accomplish the same task by using MapQuest.
Food/Flyer
Students pick a recipe that is special to their family, research online about the ingredients and interesting information, and create a flyer. The class will assemble all of the fliers into a classroom cookbook to share with their families and peers.
Jazz Newsletter
Students will study the life of a jazz musician, plus how jazz contributed to the culture and history of the United States. They will create a newsletter to share the information they found online at PBS and US Encarta.
Water Usage/Brochure
Students record the amount of water they use on a Saturday, (showers, dishwashing, brushing teeth, etc.) and compare their family results and those reported by their perers in the classroom. As a class they discuss how to conserve water and individually compile the information into a brochure.
Other Publisher Resources:
- Saving an Office 2007 file (.docx) as an Office 97-2003 file (.doc) (.pdf)
- Overview (Microsoft.com)
- Publisher Demos (Microsoft)
- Publisher 2007 Courses (Microsoft)
- Publisher Templates: Education (Microsoft)