Editing A Pattern Activity
Presented at Closing The Gap, October 2006
Begin by downloading the Balloon Patterns Activity from LearningGrids.com. Click on the Find Resources tab. Click the radio button for Clicker 5 activities, and type Balloon Patterns in the search box. Then click on the download link to place it on your computer. /
Launch the activity and click on the arrow button to advance to the next page. /
On the first page, there are patterns with 2 colors of balloons, perfect for our early learners. /
When you click on one of the empty cells, a pop-up grid opens with a choice of 5 different colored balloons to complete the pattern. This might be too confusing for some of our students, so we will edit this pop-up grid so that there are only 2 choices. /
If we click the arrow button to move to the next page, we see that the patterns are more complex and involve more color choices on the page. We will edit this so that there are only 2 colors on each page of the entire activity. Again, we will want to have only 2 choices in the pop-up grid. /
Our first step will be to edit the
the pop-up grid to show only 2 choices.
To do this, Click on Edit Mode under the Edit Menu. Then click on Explorer to view the grids. We find the Pop-up grids in the second row from the bottom in this screen. If you double-click on the Balloons grid, you will open the grid shown above. Return to the Explorer view. /
There is no balloons grid down in the Master Grid section, so we will put one there by dragging and dropping the balloons pop-up grid down. /
Once there is a pop-up grid in the Master Grids section, we can click on it and drag it back up to the Pop-up grids section multiple time to create new pop-ups. /
Right-click on each one and choose Rename to differentiate the colors in each grid. You can not use spaces in the grid names so separate words with underscores _. /
The pop-up grid for the first page should only contain a red and a yellow balloon. Double-click on the one named red_yellow_balloons. Hold down the Ctrl key and click on the orange, green, and blue balloons. Hit Delete. /
The next step is to resize the grid and the balloons in it to look like this. You may have to play around with it a little. /
In Explorer double-click on the first page, and Ctrl-click to select all of the empty cells. Right-click on the first empty cell. Select Properties. Because all of the cells are selected, you can change this setting for them all at once. /
In the Cell Properties box click on the Open
Grid tab. Click on the down arrow next to the selection of balloons to open a pop-up grid & Choose Pop-up Grid… /
In this window, select red_yellow_balloons. A preview of the grid will appear so that you know you have selected the correct one. /
In Explorer open the first page of the activity with the red & yellow balloons. The final step to editing this page is to reposition the pop-up grids so that it is clear which choice the student is making. Click in one of the boxes and notice where the pop-up grid appears. In the example to the right, it would make more sense for the 2 choices to appear directly below the open cell. Click on the bar at the top of the pop-up grid and drag it to a better position as below. /
Repeat this step for each empty cell and save the grid set as a template. /
The next step is edit the balloons on the next page. Choose 2 colors with a good degree of contrast. For example, don’t use yellow and orange balloons on the same page. Since the first 2 colors in the activity on the second page are orange & blue, we will change all of the choices to blue and orange. Ctrl-click to select all of the green balloons in the second line, then right-click and choose Delete. Ctrl-click to choose 4 orange balloons, right-click to copy them, and in an empty space right-click to paste them. Click on empty background to deselect them. Move the balloons to reposition them where the green balloons had been. /
Continue copying and pasting the other balloons to match this pattern. Edit one of the Pop-up grids to offer the choice of an orange or a blue balloon. Ctrl-click on all empty cells to open the orange_blue_balloons pop-up grid. Repeat this process with the remaining pages. You can edit this activity after finishing it to use different objects. Save the Grid Set as a template. /
Ctrl-click on all of the orange balloons. Right-click on one of the selected balloons and choose Properties. /
Type cat in the text box and click on the down arrow next to Choose Picture to choose a picture of a cat. /
Now highlight the word cat and delete it. Click OK and you will return to your page. All of the orange balloons are now cats. Repeat this process with the blue balloons and type dog. Choose a dog, then delete the text. Click OK to see a page of cats and dogs instead of balloons. The last bit of editing is to change the Pop-up grid. /
Go to Explorer and open the orange_blue_balloons pop-up grid. Replace the images on this toolbar with a cat and a dog in the same manner as above. Repeat with all of the other pages choosing different animals. Now you have a completely different activity! /
Jane Ricard, M.S.Ed. FLLAC Educational Collaborative Oct. 1, 2006 1
This activity is available for download at http://creativesupports.wikispaces.com/Clicker+5+files.