How To Make Easy Lesson Worksheets

Suitable for Preschool and Grades K-6

By Jan K., The Proofer

© Copyright 2008

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It is easy to use Microsoft Word to create simple worksheets for homeschool lessons or for daycare and after school settings, even if you are not familiar with working with Word! This illustrated tutorial will guide you through steps for using tools in Word to help you make a lesson worksheet template and then to create worksheets to accompany any subject matter. It is easy to use worksheets in any homeschool curriculum or home school lesson plan.

If you are new to working with Word, please refer this helpful article:

• Working with Word...It's Easier than You Think!

For homeschoolers, making and using worksheets can be two lessons in one! First, review the computer skills needed to create the worksheets as a lesson...

...and then use those worksheets during lessons or as assigned homework!

This tutorial will guide you through the steps needed for inserting a basic table into a Word document, and then creating a worksheet to accompany any lesson plan. (These instructions are for Microsoft Word 2003. You may need to adjust them slightly for earlier or later versions of Word.)

The example worksheet shown here is extremely basic, but will help to illustrate how to insert clipart (or other picture-type images) and text into the table. It will also help you with adjusting the size of images and changing fonts, font size, and font colors.

The goal of this tutorial is to help improve your Word (computer skills) and to offer an idea that you can use to create your own lesson worksheets for homeschooling or any other educational setting.

Open a blank Word document. Create a heading that is appropriate for the worksheet that you are making. In this example, the heading has been centered. There are two ways to do this:

1. Before you start typing, click on the "Centered" icon on the toolbar. This is a small icon with several lines of different lengths that are centered (that is, the lines do not line up on the left or line up on the right). If you don't see the icon, Then click on View, click on Toolbars, and then click on Formatting. Three icons will appear: left justify (the lines are aligned on the left), centered (the lines do not line up left or right), and right justify (the lines are aligned on the right).

2. Type the heading that you want, then "block highlight" the text (click the mouse in front of the first word, hold the mouse key down, then drag the mouse to highlight all of the text). Now, click on the "Centered" icon on the toolbar.

Hit the Enter key twice after the heading to add two blank lines.

Insert a table.

On the Toolbar, click on Table, click on Insert, and then click on Table.

Create a table that has 2 columns and 11 rows.

In the pop-up window, change the numbers in the "Number of columns" to 2 and "Number of rows" fields to 11. You can do this by clicking on the up or down arrows to the right of the field until the desired number shows in the field.

Unless you are comfortable with creating tables and understand how to adjust column width, just use the default setting "Fixed column width" (there is a colored dot in the circle to the left of this setting).

Now, click OK at the bottom of the pop-up window.

Congratulations! You have just created a table! If you've never created a table before, give yourself a "Woo-Hoo!!!"

Before you continue, take a minute to think about tables. Tables have columns (vertical) and rows (horizontal), and those columns and rows create "cells."

To help you "visualize" columns and rows, and to learn some "table terminology" refer to the sample to the left. You can see that A1 appears in the first row, in the left-hand column. A1 is a "cell." The right column, first row is cell A2. The second row cells are B1 and B2. As you can probably guess, the third row would be cells C1 and C2 (although that is not marked in the example to the left).

If there were three columns, then the cells would be A1, A2, A3. If there were four columns, then the cells would be A1, A2, A3, A4.

From this point, tables just have more columns, or more rows, or more of both! That's it! That's all you really need to understand about tables and cells!

Insert text, clipart, or photos into a table cell.

Going along with the example worksheet shown in Step 1, insert a clipart image of an apple into the table. This example uses the Clipart that is included in Microsoft Word. The clipart images that you will find may not be exactly the same.

On the Toolbar, click on Insert, then Picture, then Clipart. A sidebar menu will appear (see Step 8).

Click the cursor in cell A1 of the table (or whatever cell you want to insert clipart in).

To select the clipart image you want to insert, type in the word "apple" (or any one or two words that describe what you are looking for) in the "Search for" field near the top of the clipart sidebar menu. Click on the Go button.

Clipart images will appear. It may take several seconds for the actual pictures to appear, so don't worry if you get only "blank" boxes for a few seconds.

Slide the scroll bar down to look at all of the clipart that is available for the search word that you entered. As you scroll down, it may take a few seconds of the images to appear.

Click on the clipart image that you want to insert into the cell.

The image will now appear in the cell where you positioned the cursor (by clicking the mouse button in a cell).

As you can see here, the clipart image is quite large. If you want the image to be that large, then you need do nothing more.

However, if you want to change the size, then it is simple to do so. See Step 10.

To change the size of the image, click on the image in the table cell. Referring to the example to the left, you can see that the apple now has a "box" around it, and there are several black boxes along the box lines.

Position the cursor over any of the black boxes until a two-sided "arrow" appears. When you see the arrow, hold down the mouse key and drag the mouse toward the middle of the clipart image. See Step 11.

As you drag the mouse, a dotted line box will appear inside the clipart image. This is showing you how small you are making the image. When the image is the size you desire, simply take your finger off the mouse button.

That's it! You've re-sized an image! Congratulations!!!!

Let's review the skills that this tutorial has covered so far (so that you can get a warm fuzzy feeling!):

You've learned to:

• Center text
• Insert a table
• Search for clipart
• Insert clipart
• Re-size clipart

WOW! Good for you!!!

Now, here's how to get more than one clipart image in a table cell:

Copy the re-sized clipart image. You can do this one of three ways:

1. Click on the image in the table cell. On the Toolbar, click on Edit, then click on Copy.

---or---

2. Right click on the image, and click on Copy. (This is the step that is illustrated to the left.)

---or---

3. Click on the image, and hit Ctrl + C (hold down the key marked Ctrl and then hit the C key).

Paste the same image in another table cell.

Click the mouse in cell B1. You can insert the image in one of two ways:

1. On the Toolbar, click on Edit, then click on Paste. (This is the step that is illustrated to the left.)

---or---

2. Hit Ctrl + V (hold down the key marked Ctrl and then hit the V key).

If you want two of the same image to appear in the same cell (as shown in the example in Step 1), then simply repeat Step 14.

To fill in the remaining table cells in the left-hand column (as in the example shown in Step 1), repeat Steps 13-14 as needed.

Of course, you can insert different clipart images in different cells, depending on the worksheet you wish to create. Just follow Steps 8-14 as needed. Be creative and have fun!

Insert text into a table cell.

Click in the cell you want to put text in. In the example shown to the left the word ONE, and the numeral 1 has been entered into cell A2, and is centered. (Refer to Step 2 for centering text.)

You can now change the font, font size, and font color of that text.

If you are new to working with Word and don't really understand what font, font size, and font color mean, please refer this helpful article:

• Working with Word...It's Easier than You Think!

Block highlight the text. Click in front of the "O" in ONE and drag the mouse down to the right of the numeral 1.

As long as the text remains block highlighted you can change the font, font size, and font color (see Step 18).

In this step, the font size is being changed. Click on the down arrow next to the field that shows a number (probably 12) in the toolbar. Scroll down to find the font size that you want. The font size for this example will be changed to 22.

Now the font color is being changed. While the text is still highlighted, click on the colored letter A on the toolbar, and select a color. The font color for this example is being changed to green.

To complete the worksheet, repeat all of the steps in this tutorial as needed.

You can really have fun with this idea, and you are learning new Word skills. That's it! You've created your first basic worksheet!

However, if you are still having a little bit of trouble figuring out all of this, you can download the example worksheet shown in Step 1 as well as the sample shown to the left, to use for reference:

• Basic Worksheet (shown in Step 1)
• Sample Worksheet (shown to the left)

These worksheets open in a new window as Word Documents. Save them to your computer to have for future reference.

Get a fully illustrated, step-by-step tutorial for making flashcards (a wonderful teaching and studying tool for all ages!):

• How to Make Flashcards

Download a set of flashcards, like those you see here, numbers 1-12:

• Using Flashcards to Teach Numbers

For more about making and using flashcards, read:

• You Are Never Too Old to Use Flashcards

Get a full set of free printable beginner's fractions flashcards as well as classroom lesson tips at:

• Learning Fractions: Flashcards for Simple Fractions

Get another complete set of worksheets from Jan's Reading Room!

What better way to start teaching 1+ 1=2 than to use these colorful worksheets with pictures of apples to help children learn? This collection of worksheets provides four sets of worksheets, each set includes two worksheets and one test. The worksheets also help to teach that 1+2 is the same thing as 2+1.

Go to:

• Lesson Worksheets: Simple Math

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