Creating a Calendar of a Selected State
Created by Patricia Janann Nicholson

Your job is to create a calendar that will display graphics of a particular state. Your instructor has enlisted the help of the teaching staff at your school. Teachers have indicated the state in which they were born or have lived in and you will be assigned to create a map for them that showcases that particular state's symbols, landmarks, or other interesting information.

Download State Coloring Sheets

First download your coloring sheets by clicking on the state name that corresponds to the teacher you have chosen. Your instructor has already provided this information for you. When you click on the state name it will prompt you to save the file or open it. You will open the zip folder. You will also need to open your student folder. Once the zip folder opens drag the coloring sheets from the zip folder to your student folder.

State Coloring Sheets

Create a Horizontal Hierarchy SmartArt Graphic

Once you have all your picture downloaded you will need to create a concept map in Microsoft Word to organize how your calendar will appear.

Open Microsoft Word. With the Insert tab selected click Smart Art. Select Hierarchy then click the Horizontal Hierarchy from the choice of SmartArt Graphics. Click OK to begin constructing your hierarchy chart.

Your SmartArt should include the following in the order that it appears bulleted. You will use the text pane to get the bulleted list to format correctly. You will use promote and demote option to move your bulleted list farther left or right.

• State Name
  • January
    • Picture you will used on calendar (Ex: State Flag).
    • Two sentences describing the picture you used.
  • February
    • Picture you will used on calendar.
    • Two sentences describing the picture you used.
  • March
    • Picture you will used on calendar.
    • Two sentences describing the picture you used.
  • April
    • Picture you will used on calendar.
    • Two sentences describing the picture you used.
  • May
    • Picture you will used on calendar.
    • Two sentences describing the picture you used.
  • June
    • Picture you will used on calendar.
    • Two sentences describing the picture you used.
  • July
    • Picture you will used on calendar.
    • Two sentences describing the picture you used.
  • August
    • Picture you will used on calendar.
    • Two sentences describing the picture you used.
  • September
    • Picture you will used on calendar.
    • Two sentences describing the picture you used.
  • October
    • Picture you will used on calendar.
    • Two sentences describing the picture you used.
  • November December
    • Picture you will used on calendar.
    • Two sentences describing the picture you used.
  • June
    • Picture you will used on calendar.
    • Two sentences describing the picture you used.

First you will need to view the picture in your student folder to determine which picture you will use for January. You can easily see your pictures if you set the folder to thumbnail view.

Using Fireworks to Color and Enhance Graphics

Now you have your calendar outline you will begin coloring them in Fireworks. Several things you will need to know. You will be graded on adding bevels to your pictures and you will need to add text to the sheets that do not contain words. Your job is to color the graphic as close to how the object appears in real life. The steps for adding a bevel is listed below followed by a video you can view.

• Open Fireworks and then open the coloring sheet you want to color.

  Windows How to Video	Flash How to Video

• Find a picture of the object you are coloring and open it in Fireworks using Printkey so that you can determine what colors to use.

  Windows How to Video	Flash How to Video

• While still on the picture you just copied into Fireworks choose a color from the picture.
  

  Windows How to Video	Flash How to Video

• Return to your coloring sheet and with the magic wand select the areas you want to paint that color. If choosing more than one area of the graphic hold the Shift Key while selecting the other areas. Once you have selected all the areas you want to color click the paint bucket tool and pour into the selected areas. Make sure the Fill Selection is checked on the Properties Panel.

  Windows How to Video	Flash How to Video

• Copy the selection, create a new layer, name it, lock the graphic layer, and paste it on the new layer.

  Windows How to Video	Flash How to Video

• Lock the layer you have pasted a portion of your picture to (EX: Blue Background, and unlock the bottom layer that has your original picture. You will need to go back to your copied picture to select another color then follow the steps above for coloring in that section and copy and pasting the color onto a new layer. You will repeat these steps until all the picture is colored. Make sure you hold the shift key down when choosing more than one area. You can also use the paint brush to color in hard to select places.

  Windows How to Video	Flash How to Video

• Once you have all your colored sections on different layers you will put a filter on them that will make the graphic look 3D. Unlock the layer you want to put the first filter. Click on the selection tool then on layer that color is on in the layers palette. It should appear blue. Then select one of the filters found on properties panel. Repeat this to all your layers.

  Windows How to Video

  Flash How to Video

Saving Graphic as a Fireworks File and as a Gif

Before we add text or enlarge the canvas we need to save the file. First you will save it as a Fireworks file that will retain your individual layers. By saving it with the layers you can always go back and modify your graphic. Click File then Save As and in the file format drop down list select Fireworks PNG (*.png).

Next save it as a gif by selecting GIF (*.gif) from the drop down list.

Enlarging Canvas and Adding Text

We will be working with the gif file for this activity so make sure you don't have the fireworks graphic open. To be on the safe side close your graphic and open the gif file shown here:

First we ill enlarge the canvas and then add text. You will only need to do this step if your coloring sheet does not contain any words. We are going to add Pennsylvania State Flag to the graphic. Click on Modify > then choose Canvas Size. Depending on the amount of text you want to add will depend on how large you will make your canvas. Select the Text tool then click on the canvas to add your text. Use the Properties panel to change your font face and size. We will cover how to create innovative text fills in the next section so don't worry about the color at this time.

Formatting Text

There are several fill options that are available in Fireworks. To get to these fill options you will need to click on the small arrow at the bottom right hand corner of the paint bucket on tools palette. Then click on Fill Options at the bottom of the palette.

Below shows you the choices you have. We are going to explore the solid, gradient, pattern, and imported pattern options.

To add a stroke to your text you simple click the pencil icon, then click Stroke Options. You can play with the different stroke options available.

Add a solid fill and stroke:

Add a gradient fill and stroke:

Add a pattern fill with a stroke:

Add an external pattern (a picture) fill with a stroke:

Place all your text at the top of the picture in order for it not to hind the month on the calendar.

Save your file as a gif. It is now ready to be inserted into your calendar.

Creating your Calendar:

You will be adding a background graphic as well as your created state pictures. You will want to match the graphic you have created on your page. I used fabric swatches I found at Joann's Fabric. I used Printkey to select the swatch and saved it to my folder.

Open Microsoft Word. Click the Office button the new. Click calendars then 2010:

Select 2010 photo calendar (Mon-Sun) (Southern Hemisphere). The picture on this calendar does not matter because you are going to replace the background photo as well as the main photo.

Open your concept map that you create as an outline of your calendar. This will tell you what pictures to use for each month.

First you will need to replace the main picture with the January state picture you have created. Click on the main picture, then right click and select change picture. Navigate to your folder and select the picture you have created for January.

Next click on the background picture. Then right click and select change picture. Find the picture (fabric swatch) that will go along with your graphic. Click on it to select it.

The last thing you will do is insert a text box (Insert > Text Box) and drag it to the bottom of your page. This is where you will place your two sentence description of your picture from you concept map.

Continue adding pictures and text boxes to the remainder of your months.

Add Holiday Graphics

You will need to add small clipart graphics on the days when holidays fall. You can find a list of holidays at the following website:

http://www.holidaysmart.com/2010/year2010.htm

To insert a picture, click on the day the holiday falls and with the Insert tab selected click on ClipArt to open the clipart search box. Type in a search word (Example: Christmas) then click on the picture you want to insert it. You will need to format the text wrapping to In Front of Text.

The How To Videos will demonstrate how to add clipart to January 1st (New Years Day) and January 18th (Martin Luther King Holiday),

Add Cover Page

With the Insert tab selected click cover page. Choose a page style from the drop down list.

Type in:

• Your State Name Calendar (Pennsylvania State Calendar)
• Created by: Your Name (Created by: Suzie Q)
• The Calendar Year (2010)