Vintage Magnet’s Room 17 Goes Wild 


(Spring 2011)

Third grade students studied about animals. We learned that each animal structure has a function. Animals have many different structures for movement, eating, communicating, and for general survival. In the Computer Lab, we added structures to our “Wild Selves.” We created an imaginary self that included necessary structures for survival from other creatures.

How
We
Made
A
Build
Your
Wild
Self
Book
and
Published
It
Online Directions
based
on
Using
an
Apple
Mac
 
 Create
Your
Wild
Self

 
 1. Start
your
web
browser
such
as
Safari,
Firefox,
Internet
Explorer
 2. Go
to
http://www.buildyourwildself.com
(A
New
York
Zoo
and
Aquariums
 website).
 3. Follow
the
directions
on
their
web
site
to
build
your
wild
self.

When
done,
click
 I’m
Done.
 4. Click
Print
Your
Wild
Self
 5. Click
File
>
Print
 6. Click
PDF
>
Save
as
PDF*
 7. Assign
a
unique
name
to
the
file
when
saving,
such
as
adding
the
student’s
 name.
 8. Navigate
to
where
you
want
to
save
the
file.

In
our
case,
we
have
a
folder
for
 each
classroom
labeled
Wild
Self
Rm.
##
 9. Click
Save
 *Note:

When
assembling
all
the
PDFs
into
one
Word
document,
the
document
 became
too
large
(95MB).

ISSUEE.com
file
upload
maximum
size
is
100MB
but
 the
Word
document
keep
freezing
when
trying
to
open
it.
So
we
converted
the
 PDFs
into
JPGs
using
Apple
Preview
>
Save
As
>
JPG
>
and
set
the
size
to
around
 150KB.

Then…
we
converted
the
completed
document
back
to
a
PDF
to
 preserve
the
fonts
and
paging
that
changed
if
we
uploaded
a
DOC.

 
 Combine
All
the
Wild
Self
Animals
Into
one
Document
 
 1. Start
MS
Word
 2. Create
your
cover
page
(we
used
Google
Picasa
to
create
a
collage
of
snap
shots
 we
took
online
(using
the
Apple
Command
key,
Shift
&
4
key)
and
any
other
 descriptive
pages
such
as
this
‘How
To’.
 3. Using
menu
option
Insert
>
Page
Break,
create
a
blank
page
for
each
student.
 4. On
each
blank
page,
Insert
>
Picture
>
From
File
on
a
page.
(Or,
drag
and
drop
 picture
on
to
a
page)
 5. Double
click
the
picture
and
make
the
Layout
>
Tight
 6. Stretch
the
picture
to
fill
up
the
page.

 7. Save
often!
 8. Your
book
should
now
be
complete
to
print
out
or
upload
to
an
Internet
site
 such
as
www.ISSUU.com.

Using
the
embed
code,
from
the
ISSUU
site,
your
book
 can
be
added
to
your
web
site.