To cap off the Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles fantasy novel study, my students filmed green screen videos that made it look like they were actually standing in Whangdoodleland! If you read the Whangdoodle book with students, there are many opportunities for super creative activities. In the book, characters travel by their imaginations to Whangdoodleland. In order to bridge between our world and the Whangdoodle’s world, the characters need scrappy caps (I talked about that fun craftivity HERE) and a willingness to believe.

By the end of the book, students wanted to actually be in Whangdoodleland, so we wrote stories about an imaginary animal who might live there and designed shoebox dioramas of a scene from the fictitious setting. Students had to include details from the book in their shoebox scenes. We took pictures of the finished scenes and inserted that into the green screen video background while students presented their stories about the imaginary animals. The final video made it look like the students were actually standing in Whangdoodleland talking about their animals.

Your students could create a similar video for a variety of novel units, history time periods, or science topics. Design the background based on your unit of study and then video tape the students presenting a story or information that suits the background. You could transport yourself back to an important event in history or put yourself inside a plant cell. When the students create the video, it is a lot like when meteorologists report about the weather and are pointing to things that are not actually there. The maps and graphics are inserted later on top of the green screen background.

Green Screen Shoebox Background Materials

• 1 shoebox for each student (If you have shoeboxes with the attached lid, do not put any materials or decoration on the lid. Build inside the actual box only.)
• Felt, various colors
• Sequins
• Beads
• Cardstock or construction paper, various colors
• Foam sheets or shapes, various colors
• Play doh, model magic, clay in various colors
• Feathers
• Pom poms
• Yarn, various colors
• Popsicle sticks, clothespins…
• Any other craft materials you may have
• Elmer’s glue
• Hot glue guns

Green Screen Video Procedure

• Follow your writing workshop procedures and have students create the text they will be reading on video. For our project, students created an imaginary animal that could live in Whangdoodleland. When designing their animal, the students considered all aspects of the animal– habitat, eating habits, personality, etc. as well as including details from the book.

• After the writing is complete, design the shoebox scene. We needed about 3 class days to complete the scenes. Not only did students create the “habitat”, they designed a model of their creatures too that was placed in the box.

• Take a close-up picture of each shoebox scene. You will want to take the photo in landscape orientation and zoom in close enough so the edges of your picture are the edges of the shoebox. The pictures that were the most successful in the videos used lots of brightly colored craft materials, and the students filled in the “floor” and back of the box to give more of a 3-D effect.

• Videotape each student reading their story in front of the green screen. We had to look at the shoebox scene to determine where the student should stand, so they could add hand motions in the video and point to things that would appear in the shoebox background. Because my students were supposed to be in Whangdoodleland, the kids wore their scrappy caps while filming. Adding a little costume element is a fun detail!
• Use a video editing app to create the final video. Our school’s technology teacher used iMovie for editing. There is an app called DoInk that would work too.
• Upload all videos to a playlist on YouTube (unlisted) to share with families.

I was so excited about the final results of this video project. It definitely qualifies for differentiated instruction if you need to provide an activity that hits a wide variety of learning styles. And finally, I was pleasantly surprised by how many skills we covered– reading, writing, text evidence, summarizing, spatial reasoning, oral presentation, fine motor… To see the example of the video I modeled for the students, CLICK HERE. I even have a scrappy cap! To purchase my Whangdoodle novel unit, CLICK HERE.