So the other day I successfully persuaded my observation teacher to check out one of the school's MacBooks for me (only after I dutifully promised I wouldn't drop it in the bathtub and would have it back to her before school on Monday morning). These computers are LOADED with of fun teacher/student software that I would never get my hands on otherwise (at least at this point in school). So on Sunday, I sat down to delve into the chasms of the laptop's hard drive. Among other software, I found Neighborhood MapMachine, The Graph Club, New Keys for Kids, Easy Grade Pro, Kidspiration, Mathosaurus, and Type to Learn. I was happily trying them all out with the giddy excitement and curiousity of an 8 year old, while my oohs and hahahas drew some raised eyebrows and perplexed looks from my family. Then I found the crackerjack toy, Stationary Studio. This is the software of my teacher dreams!

As the name indicates, this software is all about stationary. Now maybe my fascination stems from my love of writing but I think any primary school teacher can appreciate my enthusiasm in this find. There are over 200 different templates for creating notes and letters, for publishing students' stories, for creating cursive practice sheets, and holiday poem projects. With the categories: Animals & Insects, Holiday & Seasons, Earth & Space, People & Places, School & Home, and Imagination, there are more than enough templates to keep a teacher graphically satiated for years.

I choose to write a letter in the middle of a jungle first, draped in moss and teasing a friendly-looking sloth, my text soared to a whole new level. Then picked a frog; I put handwriting lines in his belly in 5/8" and added the poem Polly-Wog in dashed cursive letters. This could be a practice sheet that adds a bit of fun to cursive. Once a project is created, the templates are customizable. I can add in a photo or clip-art, make colour changes, and choose to print the project in a variety of different ways. And just in case I ever run out of creativity juice, there are also 30 lesson plans to pull ideas from. The software groups these lesson plans into five categories: Language Arts, Math, Science & Health, Social Studies, and More. I can see all of my past projects through the Photo Gallery button too to help my brainstorming.

Thankfully for my family, this program doesn't have a lot of quirky, Nickelodeon-type sounds to it, so my kiddish hehehes will not interrupt when I type out notes in the future.