When it comes to teaching Microsoft Office, projects are an excellent way to assess the practical skills your high schoolers have picked up in class. After all, Office applications like Word and Excel are really just tools—it’s up to students to make great things out of them.
But it can be a challenge finding the right Microsoft Office projects to give your students the chance to make something. What kind of projects are out there, and which would fit your classroom? Where do you go to find the best ones for your students? Which projects would help them earn MOS certifications?
As a computer applications curriculum developer, teachers often ask us these questions and others about teaching Microsoft Office. In response, we’ve developed this list to give teachers an idea of the top projects for them.
In this article, you’ll discover 9 of the best Microsoft Office projects for high school students by exploring several different providers:
- Microsoft Office Projects from Rushnok Science
- Microsoft Office Projects from the Tech Twins
- Microsoft Office Projects from TechCheck Lessons
By the end of this article, you’ll have a greater understanding of each of these projects and providers so you can choose the best ones for your needs.
Microsoft Office Projects from Rushnok Science
TeachersPayTeachers (TpT) is a digital marketplace where teachers like you can buy all sorts of educational resources to teach almost any age range, pre-K to adult education.
One of the vendors on TpT is Rushnok Science, which offers dozens of resources for Microsoft Office, computer applications, and CTE classes.
Some of the projects they offer are focused around Microsoft Excel and Word, and are designed to test students’ understanding of these applications in fun and engaging ways.
What Do These Microsoft Office Projects Look Like?
Generally, Rushnok Science's projects for Microsoft Office are quick, engaging, and versatile. Some are more appropriate as warm-up activities, while others may better serve as summative assessments.
Some of these Microsoft Office projects include:
1. My Dream Car: A Microsoft Excel Project - This project has students do a cost analysis on a group of selected dream cars in order to calculate which would be best for them. Across its 15 pages of content, students practice their Excel skills by creating tables, using formulas, and analyzing data to form conclusions.2. Back to School What’s Cool This Year: A Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel Project - This project has students create Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoints presentations to predict and present what clothing and accessories they believe will be popular that school year. For this back-to-school project, students will compile data, write formulas, and display their predictions to their peers.
3. Analyze Your Favorite Players’ Performance: A Microsoft Excel Project - This project has students analyze the athletic statistics of their chosen sports star. Throughout this project, students collect data, create charts, and calculate trend lines to display how their favorite athlete performs.
Alternatively, if you’re unsure which of these projects your students would like the most, you could purchase the Microsoft Excel Activities Bundle, which includes these three projects, in addition to another three.
This way, you could give your students the choice of which of these projects would appeal the most to them.
How Much Do These Microsoft Office Projects Cost?
Depending on the time of year and available discounts, the prices for these projects may fluctuate. However, the listed price for each is:
- My Dream Car: A Microsoft Excel Project costs $5.25.
- Back to School What’s Cool This Year: A Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel Project costs $4.25.
- Analyze Your Favorite Players’ Performance: A Microsoft Excel Project costs $5.25.
In addition, if you wish to purchase the Microsoft Excel Activities Bundle to gain access to each of these projects and more, its listed price is $28.60.
Who Are These Microsoft Office Projects Intended For?
Rushnok’s projects cover a variety of functions, from warm-up assignments to end-of-semester capstones.
Generally, however, these projects focus on engaging students and testing their abilities when it comes to Microsoft Office—particularly Microsoft Excel.
If you teach high school computer applications and need engaging projects to test students with Microsoft Excel, Rushnok Science’s products are an excellent place to start.
Microsoft Office Projects from the Tech Twins
The Tech Twins are another prominent vendor on TeachersPayTeachers. They specialize in business education and computer applications, offering hundreds of resources to aid teachers in these subject areas.
Some of the projects offered by the Tech Twins are focused specifically around Microsoft Office, and assess students based on their creativity and understanding of the software.
What Do These Microsoft Office Projects Look Like?
The Tech Twins offer projects that cover Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint skills. Generally, their projects are robust and meant to serve as capstone assessments for the end of a semester or year.
Some of these Microsoft Office projects include:
4. A Year in Review Project - In this project, students design a PowerPoint presentation that informs an audience on the past year’s events and personal achievements the student has accomplished. Across its 12 parts, showcase their skills when it comes to designing and presenting a PowerPoint.5. Microsoft Word & Excel Magazine Project - This intensive project has students design and create a 14-page magazine using Microsoft Word and Excel. Along the way, students will demonstrate their creativity by using photos, columns, text boxes, tables, and other aspects of Microsoft software to complete the project.
6. Microsoft Word & PowerPoint Book Project - This lighter project is designed for early high school and middle school, and has students demonstrate their skills in Word and PowerPoint by creating their own book. Though meant as a capstone assignment, this project has a lighter workload than the other available options from the Tech Twins.
If you’re focused on teaching PowerPoint projects in particular, another option is the Microsoft PowerPoint Bundle, which comes with activities, projects, and assignments that assess students on either Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides.
How Much Do These Microsoft Office Projects Cost?
The Tech Twins frequently hold sales for their products, which means the prices of each of these projects may fluctuate in time. However, there is a listed price for each:
- A Year in Review Project costs $8.00.
- Microsoft Word & Excel Magazine Project costs $8.00.
- Microsoft Word & PowerPoint Instruction Book Project costs $1.50.
Additionally, if you want to purchase the complete Microsoft PowerPoint Bundle, the listed price is $41.00.
The Tech Twins often create such bundles from their products and sell them together as a single unit. Usually, buying these bundles is cheaper than buying each project or activity individually. This is an important point to keep in mind if you’re looking to buy a larger number of products and want to do so as frugally as possible.
Who Are These Microsoft Office Projects Intended For?
The Tech Twins are known for providing quality, comprehensive course material to those teaching Microsoft Office and other courses. These projects are particularly good fits for teachers who want substantive end-of-the-year assessments to test students' learning.
If you teach high school computer applications and need robust, intensive projects to serve as capstones for your classes, then the Tech Twins have a good selection to choose from.
Microsoft Office Projects from TechCheck Lessons
TechCheck Lessons is another major provider on TeachersPayTeachers, offering over a thousand products ranging from activities, to lesson plans, projects, and more.
TechCheck Lessons focuses on providing curriculum resources to teach technology and computer applications, and offers several activities and projects based around Microsoft Office.
What Do These Microsoft Office Projects Look Like?
TechCheck offers projects that cover Microsoft PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. Typically, these projects are simple, but also engaging, creative, and effective at testing students’ skills with Microsoft Office.
Some of TechCheck’s top projects include:
7. Social Media Page Activity for Teaching Microsoft Word - This project has students create a social media page for a famous person of their choice. In doing so, students showcase Microsoft Word skills like font formatting, object alignment, inserting text boxes, and more.8. House for Sale Flyer Activity Project for Teaching Microsoft Word - In this project, students create a one-page flyer to advertise a house for sale—either their own or somewhere fictitious. Along the way, they’ll demonstrate design skills in Word by using shapes, WordArt, columns, tables, and more to create their flyer.
9. Movie Poster Activity for Teaching Microsoft PowerPoint - Designed for early high school and middle school, this project has students create a movie poster using Microsoft PowerPoint. In crafting the poster, they’ll employ creative design skills, formatting work, text effects, and more.
If you’re looking for a greater variety of activities and projects to cover Microsoft Office, another option is to check out the activity bundles that TechCheck offers. There are bundles for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and each comes with hundreds of pages of lessons, projects, and activities.
How Much Do These Microsoft Office Projects Cost?
The projects offered by TechCheck Lessons cost much less than some of the other options in this article. Each has a relatively low listed price:
- Social Media Page Activity for Teaching Microsoft Word costs $2.00.
- House for Sale Flyer Activity Project for Teaching Microsoft Word costs $1.00.
- Movie Poster Activity for Teaching Microsoft PowerPoint costs $1.00.
If you’re looking to purchase a greater range of materials for teaching Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or all three, then take a look at the bundles on TechCheck’s TpT page. They have higher listed prices than the individual projects:
- Microsoft Word Activity Bundle costs $38.49.
- Microsoft Excel Activity Bundle costs $26.45.
- Microsoft PowerPoint Activity Bundle costs $31.00.
- Microsoft Office MegaBundle costs $55.00.
Who Are These Microsoft Office Projects Intended For?
TechCheck’s activities and projects are lighter and less intensive than some of the other projects in this article, making them good fits for teachers who need something engaging and fun. They’d likely work well as summative assessments for individual units in your computer applications class, rather than as course capstones.
If you teach high school computer applications and need engaging projects to finish off each individual Microsoft Office unit, then TechCheck Lessons might be the right choice for you.
Want to Help Students Earn Their MOS Certifications?
Finding the right projects for your high school computer applications course can be frustrating. After all, you have to both engage your students and give them a platform to showcase their mastery of Microsoft Office, and it’s a tough act balancing those two needs.
In this article, you’ve discovered some of the best Microsoft Office projects out there. If you use some of these to pad out your course, you’re bound to grab student attention and give them the chance to show off their skills in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
However, even these projects won't be enough for teachers looking to help their students earn their Microsoft Office certifications. To do that, you’ll need MOS test prep materials to ensure your students are on the right path to certification and recognition for their skills.
If you want to know the ins and outs of some of the most prominent MOS test prep providers, check out this article on the top Microsoft Office test prep materials:
