"The Year We'll Never Forget" An Animated Cartoon created by the 5th and 6th Graders of Nativity Elementary

 

I've completed many author in residence programs over the last 12 years, but I have to say that this is one of my favorites.   It is a 30 minute, animated cartoon completed my the 5 th and 6 th graders at Nativity School in Cincinnati, Oh.  

The project was completed in 1998.   But, until recently, the internet would not allow us to put video on the net that looked good.   Using the new Macromedia, Flash, Flv file format, I'm able to put the video and sound on the net for your review.

Click the play button to see intro
Click here to begin the story.

Before you view the video.


 You must have the latest version of the Flash 7 player.
You must be on a high speed connection (dsl or cable).
You must have sound .

That's it.

Story Summary

Students at an elementary school are overworked and time consumed by homework, piano lessons, soccer practice, home chores and more.   They decide to create a time machine that will create 3 day weekends forever.   The teacher that is the slave driver was involved in an experiment that made her always want to work and never have fun.

The students develop the time machine that can make the school week shorter, but the teacher steals the idea and reverses the concept.   She develops a time machine based on   their model that eliminates the weekends all together.

The story ends with the teacher being trapped in a computer, and the students change her behavior, sharing with her the benefits of balancing work with fun.

Music

The 5 th and 6 th graders that created this project wrote the theme song, sang and recorded it.

What you are about to see.

I have placed about 9 short video clips on this site for you to see.   When one ends, just click the link that says next, and it will take you to the next segment.

Software Used

We had 100 students working on this project for a full school year (October through April).   Each student had different responsibilities.   I trained 8 students to use MacroMedia Director to animate the work of the other 92 students.   The animation crew edited the video and sound.   If I were to do this project today, I would use MacroMedia Flash.


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