Unit IX Part 1 The Seasonal Round
Lesson 1 Birthday Calendars

Name ____________________________________________ Date __________________

Task: Draw and decorate an ideal birthday cake by using computer software

1. Use Kidpix or Appleworks Painting software to draw birthday cakes. Decorate the cakes with the "stamps" or other graphics. Save the drawings as GIF files.

2. Open a ClarisWorks Drawing document.

3. If the Tools Panel is not showing, select Show Tools from the Windows Menu. Use these tools from the following steps. If you are not familiar with the Tools, select Show Balloons from the Help Menu and scroll through the tools to learn their names. Select Hide Balloons when you are finished.

4. From the Fill Pallet, select a "quilt-like" pattern and a pale color.

5. From the Pen Pallet, select the "quilt-like" pattern, a thick pen width, and a dark color.

6. From the Drawing Tools, select the rectangle tool .

7. Click the cursor near the top left corner of the document and drag the cross-hair pointer diagonally to the right until a rectangle that is large enough for the cake graphic is formed. The result will be a patterned square surrounded by a thick patterned line.

8. Use the Copy and Paste functions from the Edit Menu to make five or eight more rectangles. Colors and patterns can be changed on the pasted rectangles while they are "active" by making new selections in the Fill and Pen Pallets.

9. Move the rectangles into a quilt pattern. If desired, use the Line Tool. with a "quilt-like" pattern, a thick pen width, and a dark color selected on the Pen Pallet to fill in between and around the rectangles.

10. From the File Menu, choose Insert. Navigate to the files of the "cake" graphics that students created.

11. Paste the graphics inside of the "quilt" rectangles.

12. Select on the Text tool. Click and drag to make a text box on the quilt box, then select a font, text size, text type, such as Bold, Outline or Italics, and a color. Type child's name, then click outside of the box. To change these options, click on the Text Box to make it active, and make new selections.

13. To combine all of the objects into a single graphic, choose Select All from the Edit Menu, then choose Group from the Arrange Menu.

14. To Save the graphic, click on the grouped graphic to make it active and select Save from the File Menu. From the dialog box, navigate to the desired folder, choose PICT or GIF from the Save As drop down menu, type a name in the box and click Save.

15. Print the quilt using a color printer.

16. To make a quilt in a word processing document, follow Steps 3 through 13. The graphic can not be saved as a PICT or GIFT file, but it can be printed.

17. Click here to see a Sample Cake Quilt.

For a PDF of this page click here.