Techy tip! Do you know how to crop to a shape?

I always teach my kids to line up in alphabetical order by their first names.  It just makes it so much easier when we line up because there is no pushing or shoving to see who is first.  No one can crowd in line because everyone has their spot.  Some days we switch it up and we line up in backwards order so the last person isn't always last--sorry to all the Zachs of the world!  Everyone gets their turn to be line leader at least once a month--I have a helper of the day and that person is also the line leader for the day.

Well, this year, my kiddos were having a TERRIBLE time figuring out where they should line up.  No matter how many times we practiced, they just couldn't remember who they lined up behind or about where in line they stood.  I had seen the idea of teachers putting numbers down on the floor so this is probably nothing new to most of you.  I decided that was what had to be done!

Once I decided, I knew in my head exactly how the numbers should look.  The problem was that I didn't know how to create them in PowerPoint.  I wanted that cute little Melonheadz kidlette to be cropped inside a circle.  I had seen it done, but didn't know how to do it.  I asked my blogging bestie, Kristy from Phonics Phenomenon, how to do it because she's always been at least three steps ahead of me when it comes to this blogging and creating stuff and was shocked to find out she didn't know!  (She knows a lot of stuff  so you really should head over to her blog!) I made it my mission to teach myself how to do this, so I did what we always do when we don't know something.  That's right.  I googled "how to crop pictures into a circle in PowerPoint."  My google search bar probably thought, "Oh my, the crazy lady is at it again!"  But wouldn't you know, the perfect YouTube video tutorial popped up and I was quickly able to create this.

I actually was able to find a kidlette that looked like each of my kiddos so they now have personalized line up numbers! 

I was pretty proud of myself!  So I posted a picture on Instagram (if you want to follow me over there find me @alwaysanadventureink), and I had a couple people ask me how I got the girl in the circle!  So I emailed them the YouTube videos.  Then I decided that maybe there are more of you out there who don't know how to do that so I'd do a blog post about it!  (I guess you probably figured that out already because you are reading the blog post . . . .)

 

So here are the links.  There are actually two parts to the tutorial.

 

 

So there ya go!  And I also noticed that the man who put up the video has 72 videos on YouTube so I will definitely be checking them out to see what else I can learn!

 

Now, if you want to see how the numbers are working in my classroom, and perhaps get your own line up numbers, stay tuned . . . . Another blog post coming in the next day or so!