Create Activities for Distance Learning Using Resources You Already Own

When I posted about my free Thelma the Unicorn unit, many of you were wondering how you could use this unit for distance learning. I realized that many of us were thrown into this digital learning world without any training or experience. Today, I wanted to show you how you can take the resources that you already own and use them for digital learning activities.

I know that many of us are scrambling to plan and find activities. I never want anyone to feel like they need to spend more money when they already have a resource that will work! This post will show you how you can split up a PDF to only send parents certain pages, how you can create interactive activities on Google Slides or Seesaw using worksheets you own, and how you can create an interactive Google Forms Activity.

How To Split Up a PDF

I have had SO many of you ask if you can send my resources to families, and the answer is a resounding YES! So long as you are sending them to only your families, I am totally okay with that.

Today I wanted to show you how you can split up a PDF so that you can send only specific pages to families. Many of you wanted to send your families the nonfiction book that is included in my science units so that they could read it at home, so that is what i’m demonstrating with.

I started by opening one of my nonfiction units. I made sure that I opened this in Adobe – not in my internet browser.

You will choose what pages you want to send to families.

Then, you will choose “print to PDF” and click print.

You will be prompted to give your file a name and choose where you save it on your computer.

You can see that the new PDF is now saved to my files. I can now send that PDF to families!

Create Google Slide Activities or Seesaw Activities

I know a lot of sellers are currently creating new Google Slide resources or converting their printable resources into digital, but I wanted to show you how you can do that all on your own. Remember, you don’t have to buy digital resources unless you want to!

Begin by opening PowerPoint or a similar program. Click “Layout” and set your slide to “blank.”

Then, click the Design tab and choose “Slide Size.”

Choose custom size and then make your dimensions paper size.

Open up the PDF resource that you want to use. I opened my April No Prep Sub Plans.

There are a few different ways you can screenshot the page. You can use the print screen button on your computer or you can use the snipping tool. I’ve never used a Mac, but someone told me that you can use ctrl+4 to take a screenshot.

I used the snipping tool and traced around the page.

Then, right click and paste the screenshot into the PowerPoint slide. If you took a screenshot you may need to crop the picture.

Continue to do this with all the pages you want.

When you are ready, click “Save As” and name your file and choose where you want to save it. You will save the file as either PNG or JPEG files. When you click save, it will ask you if you want to save all slides or just that one. Click all slides and it will save them all as pictures in a new folder.

Now, if you are using Seesaw, you can insert those images into seesaw as a new activity that students can write directly on. I’m going to show you how to make them into interactive Google Slide activities.

Open up a new Google Slide presentation. Choose Layout and make the layout blank.

Then, click “file” and choose “page setup.” That is where you can change the slide size. Change it to paper size.

After you change the slide size, choose “background.” If you make the images the background, students will not be able to move them or edit them.

Click “Choose Image.” You can upload any of the picture files you just saved.

Once all your slides are created, you can add things like text boxes so that students can type onto the page.

You can let students highlight words on a page. To make a highlighting box, I clicked shapes and chose the rectangle.

I made it yellow, but I wanted it to be transparent. I clicked the paint bucket and then the little plus sign that says custom.

I moved the transparency bar down. Now it is see-through.

Now students can move the box to the words they want to highlight. If you want to make multiple boxes, simply click the edge of the shape and then type ctrl+d.

For activities where students need to cut and match words, I make a shape on top of the word and type in the word in the shape.

Students can now drag the words to the correct place.

If you are using google classroom, you have the option to make a new copy of the slides for each student. If not, you can make a copy for each student yourself, or you can change the word “edit” in the URL to “copy” and it will force the use to make their own copy when they click the link.

Create Interactive Google Form Activities

An easy way to make an activity interactive in Google is to use Google Forms. This is a great way to collect data from students as well.

I am going to show you two ways to create these activities. The first is similar to creating a Google Slide activity.

You will start by opening your resource. Then, you will use the snipping tool or take a screenshot and crop only the section of the page that you want. On this page, I only selected the reading passage.

Then, you will insert that image into PowerPoint. I left my slide the original slide size this time instead of changing it.

You can use centers or questions from worksheets for this. For this one, I clipped around just one set of birds.

You can also use text boxes and pictures or clip art to make your own questions in PowerPoint. I used clip art I had on my computer, but you can find free clip art on TeachersPayTeachers.

Then, you will save your slides as images, just like I showed you above.

When you open Google Forms, you will want to choose either Blank or Blank Quiz. A quiz will allow you to choose right and wrong answers and show students their results. However, you can easily change a blank form into a quiz in the settings, so it isn’t a big deal which one you choose.

When you scroll over the question box, an image icon will appear. You can click that to upload an image in the question.

You can choose if you want the questions to be short answer, paragraph, or multiple choice.

To make a new question, just click the plus sign on the side.

You can also insert pictures into the answers. This is an example of a Google Form activity I made for my own class.

Pin this post for later: