All About Slideshows

In lieu of today’s Five for Fraturday post, I’m blogging about my end of the year slideshow.

So much for my first week of summer vacation I can blog all leisurely like and several times per week . . . turns out, I’m lazy.  😉

I’ve had a lot of questions regarding my End of the Year Slideshow so this post is supposed to cover all things slideshow.  🙂

First up, I use iMovie because I’m an Apple Girl.  Through and through, I’m an Apple Girl.  I have an iPhone, iPods and iPads in the classroom, and my laptop is a MacBook Pro.

I like Apple products.

And I like to eat apples, too.  😉

For me, iMovie is EASY EASY EASY.  You can select a theme, and iMovie will pretty much make your slideshow for you.  However, I like to make my own so I do it all.  It’s just the way I am.

First up, I kind of have the same “events” every year that I like to take pictures of so I created Title Slides to introduce the events as they come up.

Here’s an example:

I made the Title Slides in PowerPoint.  Then I saved those as PNGs and dragged them into Photos.  Once they’re in Photos, they are available for me to use in iMovie.

This year’s events were (because people asked):

*First Day of School – individual pics of the kids and I add their names

*Big Playground – I take my kids out before recess begins so I can take pictures of them on the “big playground”.  I take action shots and what-not.  This particular year was a BEAUTIFUL day and the pictures were gorgeous, if I do say so myself.

*September 11 Patriot’s Day – our school has a big shin-dig for this

*Halloween – costume day!

*Art Smarts – an art teacher comes in and teaches a lesson so I take pics of the kids working/painting/drawing and then their finished product

*Pajama Day – hot cocoa!

*Winter Party

*Valentine’s Day – exchanging valentines and our party

*Lunch in the Classroom – this was a reward day and we also had a dance party which provided some hilarious action shots

*120th Day

*Jump Rope for Heart – super fun to get action shots here, too!

*Color Run

*Field Trip

*Open House

*Nanny Goats Play

At each of these events, I take pictures like a crazy woman.  I take solo pics, group pics, candid pics, etc.

This next part IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF ALL.  I just started doing it a few years ago AND IT HAS SAVED MY LIFE.

AS SOON AS I POSSIBLY CAN, I choose and edit the pictures that I want in the slideshow AND I DROP THEM INTO iMOVIE RIGHT THEN.  I never ever want to do it, it feels like a chore, I’ll see it on my To Do List and think nooooooo, but I seriously MAKE MYSELF DO IT.  I add the transitions then, too.  AGAIN, iMovie will do all of this for you if you pick a theme, but, like I said, I have my own theme and I want the year to be chronological and I don’t want iMovie to put a Valentine’s Day picture with a First Day of School picture.

I have issues, but we’ve already covered that.

Adding the pictures as I go means that at the end of the year when I am busy with report cards and our class play and Open House and District Assessments and Parent Volunteer Appreciation Breakfasts and who knows what else means I’m not starting my slideshow from scratch.

I used to do that and it is a wonder that I still have a teaching credential because it literally made me a certifiable CRAZY person.

At the end of the year, I just need to drop in our class play pictures (it’s always the last event of the year) and add the music.

Music can also drive me crazy but only because I will spend HOURS trying to find the perfect one to go with an event.  I will change the song a million times only to come back to the original one I started with.  I have a Slideshow playlist in iTunes to help me with this process . . . although when I say it helps me, it really doesn’t because I am a NUT, I tell you.

Here are 58 songs I’ve either used, thought about using, tried out, etc etc etc.  Kidz Bop versions are also a safe way to go when I’m worried about lyrics.

So . . .

You’ve got your pictures, title slides, transitions, and music in your Slide Show.  And it’s final.  You’re not making another song change.  IT IS FINAL.  You’re hungry, you’re sick of watching it by now, and no other song will do so STOP MESSING WITH IT.

Here’s what I did this year TO MAKE IT DIGITAL which means I did NOT burn 32 DVDs:

In iMovie, go up to File and from the drop down menu, choose “Share”.  From that drop down menu, I choose “File”.  Then you’ll click “Next” and decide where to save it.  I saved it to my Desktop so I would see it right away.

Then I just sat there (and by sat there, I mean I got a snack, watched a reality TV show, and got another snack) because it took almost an hour to save.  But that’s okay.  That’s normal.  DO NOT FEAR.

Once it was on my desktop, I opened up my Dropbox (you could also do Google Docs) and uploaded it there.  This also took about an hour.  Again, do not worry.  IT IS NORMAL.

When it’s finally in Dropbox (or Google Docs), you can right-click to get a Shareable Link.  You’ll give that link to the parents!  You can email the link to parents, use Class Dojo to share it, or Remind . . . whatever you like.  I wanted my parents to have something in their hands to hold so I made the hand-out.

You can get an editable version of my hand-out {HERE}.

I added a QR code after I shared the picture of my hand-out and several people said they used a QR code, too!  And I wanted to be just like them so there you go!

To add a QR code, I went to THIS WEBSITE.  At the top it says “Enter Text to Share Here”.  That is where you paste the link you’re giving out to parents to your Dropbox or Google Docs.  Once you’ve pasted that link, the QR Code on the right is what you’ll want!

Just hit “Save” at the top and it will download to your computer as a PNG.  Go into your Downloads, drag it out (I usually drag it to my desktop so I can find it easily) and then you can insert it into the handout above as a picture.  🙂  Be sure to add something on the hand out that says DOWNLOAD FOR THE ENTIRE MOVIE because if they don’t download, it will only give them a “preview” and it won’t be the whole thing.  My slideshow was 31 minutes this year and I really tried hard to keep it under 25.

Oops.

THE END.

I feel like taking a bow now because this post took me several days to write BECAUSE GOOD GRIEF a slideshow sure is a labor of love when you think you’re smarter than a pre-made theme that iMovie is offering.

🙂

And that’s all I can think of!  Be sure to leave a comment or question if you have a better way/smarter way/shorter way of doing this or have a question!  🙂

Have a happy weekend!