Category: Photoshop
Photoshop Basics
Before teaching Lesson Plans using Photoshop, be sure to cover the basics with students:
Open Photoshop. Notice the tool bars at the top. These will change depending upon the tool you choose from the left side. These are the crux of Photoshop. We’ll cover about ten of them in fifth grade. The rest will have to wait. The right-hand tools are used independent of the left-hand tools. They are more project oriented.
- Click the File Browser tool (top right-ish). It shows you the folders on your computer. From here, you can select the picture you’d like to edit (or use File-open) (more…)
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Book Review: Photoshop Elements 12
Photoshop Elements 12: The Missing Manual
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I love Photoshop CS, but my school will no longer support the cost of a license. At first, I refused to teach image editing, feeling like any program I used would be inferior to what I should be teaching. I continued with the decade-old CS (not the up-to-date CS 5). No problem with that. Students loved it, found it easy, extended learning to home–and that’s when the problem arose. They–of course–had to buy the upgrade and wondered why I was using such an old program.
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#10: Drawing in Photoshop
Photoshop reputation as a photo editor ignores its many other tools that enable you to draw like a pro with a wide variety of brushes, textures, and scintillating extras. This side of Photoshop is perfect for creative projects that tie in with many different classroom lesson plans.
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Photoshop basics[/caption]
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#4: Photoshop for Fifth Graders: The First Step is Word
Before we get into Photoshop, we’ll start with a program your fifth grader is most likely comfortable with: MS Word. For basic image editing, Word does a pretty good job, so we’ll start with a project using Word’s tools:
- Open a blank document in MS Word. Insert a picture with multiple focal points (see samples).

- Duplicate the image once for each focal point.
- Click one image to activate toolbar.
- Crop each duplicate to show just one of the focal points (more…)
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Photoshop for Fifth Graders: the Basics
As with all lessons in the Photoshop series, this is available in the book, 55 Technology Projects for the Digital Classroom Volume I on publisher’s website, Amazon.com or Scribd.com as an ebook)
***
Before I continue, I’m going to cover some basics (I heard y’all. I should have done this weeks ago).
Open Photoshop. Notice the tool bars at the top. These will change depending upon the tool you choose from the left side. These are the crux of Photoshop. We’ll cover about ten of them in fifth grade. The rest will have to wait. The right-hand tools are used independent of the left-hand tools. They are more project oriented.
- Click the File Browser tool (top right-ish). It shows you the folders on your computer. From here, you can select the picture you’d like to edit (or use File-open) (more…)
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#7: Fifth Grade Cropping in Photoshop
Before trying this lesson, start here and here and here, with background training on image editing. Don’t worry. It’s not hard–just the basics.
Ready? Let’s start with what Adobe Photoshop is–a grown-up KidPix, and the default photo-editing program for anyone serious about graphics. This series of projects (available in 55 Technology Projects for the Digital Classroom Volume I) introduces students to a traditionally-challenging program in an easy to understand way, each scaffolding to the next, thus avoiding the frustration and confusion inherent in most Photoshop training.
There are three ways to crop in Photoshop:
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Where Would You Like to Go Today?
Are you here for a lesson plan… Tech tips… Humor? Click the category below and you’re there.
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52 weeks of tech tips[/caption]
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KidPix lessons for K-2[/caption]
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Google Earth lesson plans[/caption]
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Photoshop lesson plans[/caption]
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Web 2.0 lesson plans[/caption]
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MS Word lesson plans[/caption]
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Take a break[/caption]
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Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.
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Find Great Kids Websites
They’re user-friendly, kid-tested, organized by grade and topic. Just click this link to Great Kids Websites and scroll down until you find your grade and subject.
Send me an email with any websites you use with your students:
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*8: Fifth Grade Cloning in Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is kind of like KidPix for grown-ups, as well as the default photo-editing program for anyone serious about graphics. This series of projects (available in the first volume of the book, 55 Technology Projects for the Digital Classroom) introduces students to a traditionally-challenging program in an easy to understand way, each project scaffolding to the next, thus avoiding the frustration and confusion inherent in most Photoshop training.
We’ve already completed Word image editing basics here and Photoshop autofixes here. This one on cloning is going to be a favorite of your children.
The clone tool duplicates a hard to crop-and-copy image (like the flowers below) or deletes part of a background—a sign or a post in a nature scene—you don’t want there. You can clone within a picture (as with the flowers), (more…)











































