2nd Grade Famous Americans iMovies

iMovie is one of the more complicated programs on the MacBook computers, so I usually save that one for later in the school year. I’ve been working a lot with the second graders at Laburnum Elementary, and they have showed me they were ready to try iMovie. Since they’ve been reviewing the famous Americans (SOL 2.11) for upcoming tests, we decided to create movies about the famous Americans that they (and other classes) could use for review. Each child selected a person they were interested in and did a bit of research to refresh their memories. I showed them how to open up iMovie and add a title screen. Next they recorded themselves introducing the person using the built in video camera. I taught them how to select the part of the video they wanted to use and drag it up into their project. Then we did a Google Image Search for pictures of their famous person and added those to the video. I explained how to adjust the Ken Burns effect if necessary and they recorded a voiceover narration to accompany the photos. Finally I showed them how to add music to their video using the Audio Inspector. We exported the finished videos, and I posted them to a Google Doc which you can see by clicking here.