Teaching Ideas

Sleigh Ride Flashlight Choreography Video I made this Sleigh Ride Flashlight Choreography Video to make teaching my students easier and to allow my students to practice at home using the Seesaw Activities option. Although many of my teacher friends around the country are experts at flashlight choreography, my students and I have never tried it before this year. After studying video examples on YouTube like this one from Clarksville Primary School in Clarksville, Arkansas, and Artie Almedia’s Trans Siberian Orchestra version , I decided to bravely try adding flashlight choreography to this year’s Holiday concert. In this Sleigh Ride Flashlight choreography video there are three colors: green for fourth grade, red for third grade, and white for first grade. Green (4th) always leads each B section movement and red (3rd) and white (1st) always follow their example. For the actual program, I directed the three groups with my own flashlight and hand signals. We had practiced it enough that they knew what to do with only a little prompting.   Making the Sleigh Ride Flashlight choreography video To make this video, I used the Explain Everything app and a blue background to film each section. I used blue to contrast with and remove the background from the green smiley face).  I could have then taken it through the Doink Green Screen app to eliminate the blue background and then exported it to iMovie. By having moving images and a clear background, I could easily layer and create more movement within the video. (random sparkles, large circles, karate chops, etc.) ScreenFlow However, I used ScreenFlow, the inexpensive lite version of Final Cut X, to create this movie. I was able to remove the blue background, add text, and create multiple clips to suit the needs of the choreography. This movie took me about two hours to create, but I was a bit distracted by watching a rerun of Law and Order. ScreenFlow is easy to use and will do almost everything I want to do in my simple movies. It’s much more powerful than iMovie on my Mac. Seesaw Activities So inspired by the way this Sleigh Ride Flashlight Choreography Video turned out, I decided to take advantage of the Activities feature in Seesaw.  I created a lyrics video for each of our songs for the upcoming holiday concert and uploaded them as activities for my students so they could practice the songs at home using their iPads. Example 1, Example 2     Using Technology to Audition Students Using the Activity in Seesaw, students were able to listen and practice the song at home. If the students wanted to audition for a solo, they simply used the video tool in Seesaw to record themselves singing the solo and uploaded it to the Music folder for me to preview. If students wanted to be a joke-teller, they auditioned by making a video of their best joke telling skills. Auditioning this way was so amazingly easy and efficient: students worked hard to create their best video in the quietness of home, and I was able to listen and comment privately without having to deal with tons of kid at the same time during the school day. So much less stress on everyone!!   Lights, Camera, Action! It’s time for the Sleigh Ride Flashlight Choreography Video I hope you can use the flashlight choreography video for your holiday program or just for ideas for creating your own video tutorials for your students. With so many technology tools available, I love the constant challenge to use them to their fullest. Game on!