2nd grade Green Screen Living Christmas Cards

What: Created an iMovie of students reading the Christmas Story with their illustrations of various aspects of it floating behind them.

Materials:

• Copy of Luke 2 passage
• Student illustrations of various sections of the passage
• iMovie with green screen option
• PhotoBooth or some other program to capture video
• Green fabric or tablecloth
• Wall space to hang the green screen

Time: 1 week

Challenges: 

• Where do you publish? How do you share it?
• Budget time for the movie to render and upload if you're sharing.

Tips: 

• Film students off center so their illustrations can be clearly seen with their illustrations behind them.
• Make sure the green screen fabric does not have a lot of wrinkles.
• As with all filming, be sure to find a spot to film where there is a minimum of background noise.
• Type out each verse in large print, like a teleprompter, that you can tape to the screen. It will not be seen by the camera on the laptop.
• Be sure to remind students not to wear green for the green screen shoot.
• As soon as you film a student's portion, name the film clip so you can track the order and match the film to the student's illustration.
• Take high quality pictures or scan the students' drawings and name them immediately so you can match them to the film clips.
• Have students draw the pictures either landscape or off to the opposite side of where they were standing for best orientation in the movie.

Narrative:

The 2nd grade teachers and I wondered if we could create a living Christmas card of students reciting Luke 2. We made plans to shoot video of the children reading portions of Luke 2. The teachers asked parents to work with children to learn Luke 2. We taped a copy of the passage to the laptop to use as a  teleprompter. I found a large green piece of fabric and pinned it to the wall. The students stood in front of it and read their verse. I used PhotoBooth to capture the students' readings.

The students drew their pictures in class. We took pictures of them. Then we dropped them in the iMovie to match each clip. We followed the iMovie procedures found in this Green Screen Lesson. NOTE: No need to match the exact size of the illustration and video, iMovie will do that for you.

If using an iPad, you and your students may be able to edit the movie together with this app: Green Screen Do Ink