In the classroom, most PowerPoint presentations are created by middle and high school students as colorful science, social studies, or book reports. With a little help, however, even students in the primary grades can use PowerPoint.

Creating storybooks -- writing and illustrating fictional stories based on prompts -- is an easy activity to use to teach elementary students to use PowerPoint.

Before beginning the activity, however, you need to create a storybook template for students to use. Here's how!

• Go to Start > Programs and open PowerPoint. The program will open up to a title slide containing a title box and a text box.
• In the title box, type My Story About a _____. Include the underscore as a cue for students to complete the line.
• In the text box, type Student's Name and click Enter. Type your name and the date beneath those words.
• Click Insert > New Slide.
• When Slide 2 opens, go to Format>Slide Layout and choose a slide layout that contains a title box, a text box, and an area for an image. (You can choose from several different layouts, depending on the version of PowerPoint you have.)
• In the title box, type Once upon a time� Leave the text box and image area blank.
• Click Insert > New Slide and open a new slide with the same layout and type in the title box, One day,�
• Open a new slide and type in the title box, Then, all of the sudden,�
• Open a new slide and type in the title box, Luckily,�
• Click Insert > New Slide and choose a slide layout that contains a title box and an area for an image, but no text box. Type in the title box, And they all lived happily ever after.

Next: Save it as a template!