Creating Tri-Fold Leaflets using PowerPoint

I was originally given inspiration for this lesson by Bev Evans a couple of years ago when she shared some of her ICT planning with me but I've only recently managed to implement the idea successfully enough to blog about it.

I'm always enjoy finding creative ways to present Internet research to show the children so that they get a bit of variety in what tools/software they use - if you search through my blog you'll be able to read loads of posts about work I've done with children this year to extend them on from just creating a word processed document/linear presentation. Even though this presentation method does involve using PowerPoint, you'll hopefully be able to see how the finished outcome is rather different from the norm.

A tri-fold leaflet is basically a double-sided sheet of A4 paper that is folded up into thirds to create a printable document that can display content spread over six columns - you'll likely see lots of them in tourist information centres as they're probably the most common form of advertisement for tourist attractions. There are many different programs that you can use to make them: 2Publish Plus, MS Publisher and Purple Mash to name but three, however I opted to teach Year 4 how to create them in PowerPoint because it would allow them to insert their own images and access a sufficient range of familiar editing/formatting tools to present their information in lots of different ways (you don't really want every piece of work looking identical).

I began by getting them to work together collaboratively in groups of four to search the Internet to match the names of several different settlements in the north west region of England (where my school is located) with lists of some of the major attractions/landmarks found in them. This was only a short task but it hopefully taught them what famous things could be found at different places, if they weren't already familiar with them beforehand.

Next, I then demonstrated the key techniques involved in creating a basic tri-fold leaflet in PowerPoint, using a template that I had already made up for them that split each page (slide) up into three columns.

Download NW Leaflet Template

After this, I then gave them about an hour to work on creating their leaflets independently (the second half of the first lesson and the first half of the second lesson). They all did this pretty well since the skills involved were mostly just things that had been taught previously, just applied to a different style of document to give them the opportunity to further consolidate/practice using them. To help them appreciate all the things that they could do to make their work up, I printed off a skills checklist for them so that they could monitor their progress and see what extra tools they could try out:

At the bottom of this, you'll notice a box for peer-assessment - half way through the second lesson, I asked the children to look at somebody else's work and comment on what two things they felt had been done successfully and one wish for what could be improved upon. I did this with half-an-hour still to go so that the children would then have enough time to work on this feedback and edit/refine/modify their work for the better. I also highlighted my differentiated success criteria to them so that they could see what my expectations were for their final outcome (taken from my skills grids here):

You can view some of the completed tri-fold leaflets on my school website by clicking here and you'll hopefully agree that they are good examples of ICT work (with a geographical context) pitched at a Year 4 level since they demonstrate the children being able to independently combine a range of ICT skills together to create a document for a purpose.

Comments

[Paul]

Brilliant piece of work and thankyou for sharing it on the web, I have been struggling to find out how to do this to make a simple promotionl flyer for my business and following your lesson, I have managed to do it, I wish we had teachers like you in my day,keep up the great work, regards Paul.

[Claire Chilvers]

Thanks for this blog. We dont have publisher on our Microsoft office version as its the student version. My daughter was trying to make a pamphlet for a school project and I wanted to find the easiest way to do this on either word or powerpoint. I love using powerpoint as its so versatile and my daughter is familiar with it too so it will be great for her to use your template.

Thanks
Claire