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Lesson Plan Creating Cartoons

Lesson Procedure

1. As you are going to being producing a one slide cartoon, think about what message it is that you wish to convey. Do you want to advertise a product? Tell a story? Crack a joke? Create a story board depicting your ideas and slide layout.
2. Once you have chosen the context of your presentation, you will need to think about what images you would like to use. What image will sit in the background to set the scene? What characters are required? Are there any props required?
3. Now that you have decided what images you would like to include, its time to go and find them. Check out Microsoft Clips on Line for a great range of still and animated images as well as photos and sound effects.
4. Use a search engine to surf the web for you images or check out Google images for a huge range. Once you have found the images you want to use, lets save them to your folder on the school server (you will need to create and name a folder specifically for this task).
5. Time to put it all together in a PowerPoint presentation. See sample file Two cows standing in a paddock cartoon.ppt. Animate your images so they come on and off the screen, add sound effects for that extra pizzaz and enjoy showing and sharing your presentations with your classmates.

Assessment

When assessing student learning consider:

• Did students create affective animations that would appeal to a chosen audience?
• Did students use the custom animation features effectively to bring characters to life?

How to create an animated cartoon in PowerPoint

In this activity we are animating images and adding sound files. Prior to beginning this tutorial, you will need to gather and save your sounds and pictures to file ready for use:

Saving images from the Internet

1. Place your cursor on the image
2. Right click the mouse and select Save Picture As
3. From the Save Picture dialogue box, locate your folder on the school server and click Save

Saving sound files from the Internet

1. Place you cursor on the link to the sound image
2. Right click the mouse and select Save Target As
3. From the Save As dialogue box, locate your folder on the school server and click Save

Now that our images have been saved, we are ready to begin!

Creating a PowerPoint presentation

1. Select Start > Programs > Microsoft PowerPoint
2. A title slide will open by default. To add text, click on the text fields and begin typing
3. We are going to insert an image to sit as the background scene for our cartoon. Select Format > Background

4. Activate the drop down menu and select Fill Effects
5. Select the Picture tab from the Fill Effects dialogue box

6. Click Select Picture. Locate your saved image from your folder and click Insert. Your image will be previewed for your approval
7. Click OK then Apply
8. Your image should now be inserted as a background effect on your slide.

Inserting images

We are now going to insert images of our characters.

1. Select Insert > Picture > From File
2. Locate your image from your file saved on the school server and click Insert
3. To highlight an image, click on it. The resize handles will appear to indicate that the image is highlighted. Resize your image to suit by dragging the diagonal corner handles

4. Drag and drop your image into place on your slide
5. Continue adding images to suit

Adding sound files

In our example, we want one of our cows to moo. We have located and saved a sound file from the internet into our folder ready for use.

1. Select Insert > Movies and Sounds > Sound from file
2. Locate your saved sound file from your folder and click OK
3. Select if you would like the file to play automatically or on command when you click on it. In our example, we do want it to play automatically

   

4. A speaker icon will appear on the slide to indicate that a sound file is present. Drag and drop the icon to a suitable place on the screen

Adding dialogue boxes

We want the cows to look as though they are talking so we are going to create speech bubbles.

1. From the draw toolbar, select AutoShapes > Call Outs. Choose the shape you would like to insert

2. Hold down the left button on the mouse and drag your cursor across the screen to draw the speech bubble
3. When you release the left button, the cursor flashed indicating that you can type into the speech bubble
4. To change the colour of your speech bubble, click on it to highlight it then from the drawing toolbar click the downwards pointing arrow next to the Fill Colour button to activate the menu of options. Select More Colours and choose a colour from the palette

Creating the animations

To animate an object you must first highlight it by clicking on it. To animate an object you must first highlight it by clicking on it.

1. Highlight the object you would like to animate
2. Select Slide Show > Custom Animation
3. From the Custom Animation task pane select Add Effects > Motion Paths > Draw Custom Path > Line

4. Hold down the right button on the mouse and drag your cursor across the screen to draw a line for your image to follow.
5. The custom animation effect will be recorded in the task pane. Using the drop down menu arrow, change the start time to After Previous and adjust the Speed options to suit

4. Adjust the Start command to After Previous and adjust the Speed to suit
5. All effects will be recorded in the Custom Animation Task pane including any sound files you have inserted
6. Click Play to view your animations
7. Continue adding animation effects to your presentation. Remember that you have to highlight the object you want to add an effect to.
8. Preview your animation by selecting Play or watch the big screen version by selecting Slide Show or by using the F5 key on your keyboard.
9. Once you have completed your animation, present your cartoon to your class and have a good giggle!