Description

Create something students will actually want to keep while practicing essential Google Slides skills! In this Custom Name Charms Digital Design Activity, students use Google Slides to create a personalized name charm using shapes, colors, patterns, fonts, letters, and decorative icons. Along the way, they practice important digital design and computer skills such as moving, resizing, rotating, layering, formatting, and grouping objects.

Once the designs are finished, print them on cardstock and laminate them to create a bookmark, name tag, backpack tag, or keychain-style charm. Add a hole punch and string, ribbon, or key ring for an easy hands-on extension!

This activity works especially well as a beginning-of-the-year technology project, Google Slides skills practice, digital design challenge, early finisher activity, or creative computer lab lesson.

WHAT STUDENTS DO

Students will:

• Choose a base shape for their name charm
• Select colors and patterns
• Add the letters of their name
• Choose and customize fonts
• Add decorative icons and small charms
• Move, resize, rotate, and arrange digital objects
• Practice using forward and backward layering tools
• Group multiple objects into one completed design
• Make creative choices to personalize their finished project

COMPUTER SKILLS PRACTICED

This project gives students meaningful practice with common Google Slides and digital design skills, including:

• Selecting objects
• Clicking and dragging
• Copying and pasting
• Resizing objects
• Rotating objects
• Formatting text
• Changing colors and styles
• Arranging objects
• Layering objects forward and backward
• Selecting multiple objects
• Grouping objects
• Creating an organized digital composition

Rather than practicing these tools in isolation, students use them together to create a finished product with a real purpose.

WHAT IS INCLUDED

• Student digital design activity
• Customizable name charm pieces and design elements
• Multiple design options for student choice
• Completed examples for inspiration
• Student directions
• Project rubric
• Brief teacher lesson plan
• Learning objectives
• ISTE Standards for Students alignment
• Suggested lesson structure
• Google Slides troubleshooting tips
• Teacher tips for collecting, printing, and finishing student designs

ISTE STANDARDS CONNECTIONS

This activity supports the following ISTE Standards for Students:

• 1.4 Innovative Designer – Students use a digital design process to create, arrange, revise, and customize a finished product.

• 1.6 Creative Communicator – Students express themselves creatively through purposeful choices involving text, color, imagery, and layout.

• 1.1 Empowered Learner – Students build technology fluency by using common digital creation and editing tools.

SUGGESTED GRADE LEVELS

This activity is designed with elementary students in grades 2–5 in mind.

Younger students may benefit from a teacher demonstration of the Google Slides tools before beginning. Older or more experienced students can work more independently and spend additional time refining their designs.

SUGGESTED LESSON LENGTH

Approximately 30–45 minutes, depending on student experience and how much time you allow for customization.

This makes a great one-class-period technology activity!

TURN THE DIGITAL DESIGN INTO A FINISHED PROJECT!

The fun does not have to end when students finish designing.

Print completed designs on cardstock and laminate them for durability. Then cut them out and hole-punch the top or side.

Students can add:

• Key rings
• Binder rings
• Ribbon
• Yarn or string
• Beads
• Letter beads
• Tassels
• Small craft charms

Students can turn their finished design into a bookmark, backpack tag, name tag, keychain-style accessory, or classroom keepsake.

Adding physical beads and charms is also a fun maker-style extension that gives students another opportunity to make their creation completely their own.

GREAT FOR

• Elementary computer lab
• Technology class
• Google Slides practice
• Digital design lessons
• Back to school
• Beginning-of-the-year activities
• Student name activities
• Digital art projects
• Maker activities
• Early finishers
• Sub plans
• End-of-year activities
• Creative technology projects

WHY TEACHERS WILL LOVE IT

Students get excited about creating something personalized, while teachers get a purposeful way to practice a surprisingly large number of Google Slides skills in one activity.

The project is structured enough to make it manageable for elementary students but open-ended enough that the finished designs can look completely different from one another.

Students aren’t just learning where the tools are—they’re learning how to use digital tools together to plan, create, customize, and refine an original design.

Tech Smarts Start Here!

By Brittany Washburn