birth keepsakes for practically free

lately I have been seeing some great birth keepsakes online

however, I cannot bear to spend $100 on a throw pillow

but seeing these outrageous products did get me thinking

I really want to show off all of E's birth details in her nursery

and that's when it hit me

in one of our early masters classes we were introduced to wordles

wordle is a free website that allows you to make some fun "word clouds" 

now yes, you could make something like this in photoshop

but I love how this website organizes, and re-organizes 

your words for you in seconds

you just click the button and the words go flying into a new position

you can change fonts, colors, and word alignment

however, as you play around with wordle you will quickly find one thing out

if you find an arrangement you like - save it as a PDF

because you will never get the same exact word cloud again!

I've made two wordles below

[and saved about 20 to my desktop because let's face it, 

this website is a tad addicting once you get started]

I couldn't decide which one I liked the best to share here

so here's two

plus, this way you can see how different you can make the word cloud

depending on what type of design you are going for

now these wordles can be used in the classroom too

[hence the reason we were shown them in our masters program]

and hey, I haven't talked about the classroom for a while

and since this blog used to be all about teaching, many of my readers are teachers

so here you go...

whatever word is typed into the website the most 

becomes more prevalent on the wordle

a few classroom suggestions include:

-spelling practice

-vocabulary

-teaching genres

-character education

-writing units

-typing practice

-getting to know you activity for the beginning of the year or for Open House

just to name a few

and the best news is, the website is free

so if you have access to technology in your schools

I would suggest giving this a whirl

if the adult students loved playing around with it, I'm pretty sure kids would too

but since I'm currently playing stay at home mama

I'm going to figure out which one [of my 20!] I like best

and hang it in Everly's nursery

I'm thinking I can get everything printed and framed for less than $20

so that sounds pretty good to me