Printed Post-it Notes for School and Home

I am so excited to share some ideas for using printed Post-it notes in an early childhood classroom or at home.I am excited because I love Post-it notes!  I am obsessed with using them in my planner because they allow me to have lots of flexibility.  I need flexibility.  Post-it notes are all over my desk, on my laptop, and even in my car.  If you are a Pinterest addict like me, you might have seen a pin demonstrating how to print pictures and words on Post-it notes.  When I saw this idea my wheels started turning as I began to think of ways to use picture Post-it notes in an early childhood classroom.  The first thing that came to my mind was using them for class graphs.

If you use pictures of the kids when you make a class graph, the kids will be much more excited about the activity.  Young kids love themselves, and are very excited to see their picture anywhere and everywhere.  Using Post-it notes is much easier than taping individual pictures onto your graph, plus you should be able to re-use them a few times before you have to print more.  I have created two templates in Microsoft Word to help you print your kids pictures and names on the small rectangular sized Post-it notes (the ones that measure about 1.5″ x 2″).

The first template is a Post-it Placement Template.  When you open this file do not make any changes to it.  Just print a few copies of it.  After printing, position a rectangular post-it note in each of the 9 rectangles on the page.  This will put them in the perfect position on the page for printing.

Post-it Placement Template

If you created name cards for your word wall using my tutorial, the next template is similar to the one in that post.  You will need square pictures of your kids.  If you want more detail on how I get my square pictures, read this.

Right click on a smiley face and select “change picture”. Then select your square picture from a file or your Dropbox.

When you open The Post-It Picture Template document below, you will see a bunch of smiley faces. Right click on a smiley face and select “change picture” from the drop down menu.   Then select a square picture from your file or Dropbox.  When you do this, the smiley face will be replaced by your own picture.

Below each smiley face or picture you will see the word “name”.  You can replace “name” with the name of your children.  I used the KG Miss Kindergarten font.  You can download the font (it’s free for non-commercial use) here.  If you don’t have the KG Miss Kindergarten font, you might have to play around with the fonts and font size in the document.  Once you have added your pictures and names to the Post-it Picture Template document (don’t forget to add a picture of yourself), it’s probably a good idea to save it on your computer so that you can easily come back and print more.

Post-it Picture Template

Now, do you remember the placement template that you filled with Post-it notes?  Load that page into your computer so that it will print on the Post-it side of the paper with the arrows at the top of the page.

There are many different printers out there, so you might have to experiment to figure out the correct direction to load the paper into your specific printer.  When you print, the Post-it notes should look like this.

Use them for class graphs, and when you are done move the Post-it notes to a piece of paper so that you can use them over again.

I’m sure that you will find many other uses for these little printed post-it notes around the classroom and at home.  A few classroom ideas include:

• attendance chart
• scavenger hunt
• sorting exercises (sort by beginning letter, boy/girl….)
• visual schedule (you can use pictures of your classroom instead of pictures of kids)

I have been using the notes at home.  My son LOVES our cat and dog and I have been using their pictures to bring his attention to a few reminders….and to crack him up.  A few other ideas include:

• visual step-by-step directions (to make hand washing directions, take a picture of hands in water, soap pump, lathering, rinsing, drying…..)
• visual schedules
• lunch box notes

I hope that you have fun using these Post-it templates and I would LOVE to see your ideas.  As I think of more fun ideas I will share them as well.

To see more graphing ideas, visit my graphing idea board on Pinterest.

Follow Jen Hier @ Early Learning Ideas’s board Math – Graphing on Pinterest.