In my last post about how to teach addition to young kids at home, I suggested several hands-on activities including online and offline options for kids to be able to practise new addition skills. One idea was for kids to make their own number line online to help them to understand addition and use it to solve addition problems.
In this post, I'm going to show you how to make a number line in PowerPoint. I learned how to do this whilst looking into how parents can help kids with addition at home and thought I'd share it so that you and even your kids can learn to make your own digital number lines online. This number line is so quick and easy to make that after a few practises, I managed to make one in just one minute.
Anyone can make this number line using the following step by step instructions. If you'd rather watch my video tutorial on how to make a simple number line on PowerPoint just click here, or scroll to the bottom of this post 🙃
FREE DOWNLOAD: you can download the number lines template that I made on PowerPoint for free by clicking here!
Step by Step Instructions: How to Make a Number Line in PowerPoint
First, right-click on an existing slide and click on New Slide.
Either select everything by drawing a box around the items or with the keyboard shortcut CTRL+A or Command+A. Then press the delete key or the backspace key on Mac.
Click on Insert and then Table and highlight a table 9 cells wide by 1 cell tall and click to insert it into the slide.
Click on your new table to highlight it and then click on the table design style presets drop down and choose the one with the plain white background and the black borders.
Now stretch the table to the length you would like your timeline to be by clicking on it and dragging the middle handle on the end towards the edge of the slide.
Click on Insert in the menu and then click on the Shapes drop-down and choose the Rectangle.
Move your new shape up so that it covers the bottom half of your table by clicking on it and dragging it to reposition it.
Stretch the rectangle shape using the handles on the side so that it covers the entire bottom half of the table. If you want the markers on your number line to be shorter then have the shape covering more by putting it further up and if you'd rather have them longer and more obvious then just move the shape down more. Just make sure to have the bottom border of the table covered.
Now click on your shape to highlight it and then use the fill icon and the border icon to change the fill and border to white.
The rectangle is now invisible and makes your table look like a number line. Next, click on Insert in the menu at the top and then click on Text Box.
Drag your new text box up and place it just below the part of the table that is visible. This is where we will insert the numbers for the number line so make sure that it's placed far enough to the left that the first number will be below the first marker.
Stretch the text box using the handles on the sides so that it is slightly wider than the width of the table or longer than the length of the number line. The text box needs to be long enough otherwise there won't be room for the last number and it will end up going down onto a new line.
Start typing in the numbers and just hold down the space bar in between each number to help you move quickly along the line until you get to the space below the next marker where you want to type your next number. (You could alternatively type in all of your numbers straight away and then put the spaces in afterwards.)
And voila! That's it - so quick and easy and perfect for kids learning addition or even subtraction at home.
How to Make a Number Line in PowerPoint Video
Number Line Template Free Download
If you just don't have 60 seconds to spare or you don't feel like making your own number line then you can download the number lines template that I made on PowerPoint for free by clicking here!
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