Grade 10 • Unit 12: Going Further • Lesson 26 of 27 • 2 Days

Adding Motion: Your First Keyframe Animation

🗓️ Before Class: Teacher Prep

🖥️ Slide Deck (project or share with students)

Short, on-the-board pacing slides for today's Do Now, agenda, vocabulary, and exit ticket -- the full detail lives in the handout above, not here.

🧑‍🏫 Substitute Teacher Guide

A scripted, step-by-step runsheet for today's class -- hand this to anyone covering the room who doesn't know the daily routine.

🎯 Essential Question

📈 Learning Objectives

By the end of this lesson (2 Days), students will be able to:

  1. Explain what a keyframe is and why animating any property needs at least two of them.
  2. Animate a text or graphic element's position, scale, or opacity over time using keyframes.
  3. Connect this technique to how professional motion graphics and video titles are actually built.

📐 Standards Alignment

CDOS (Career Development & Occupational Studies)

ACP (Adobe Certified Professional) Photoshop Exam Objectives

📚 Key Vocabulary

Keyframe
A saved value for a property (position, size, opacity) at a specific point in time -- two or more keyframes let the software calculate everything in between automatically.
Easing
Controlling whether motion between keyframes speeds up, slows down, or moves at a constant rate.

🧰 Materials & Tools

🧠 Do Now (Warm-Up)

Think of any animated logo or title you've seen online. What actually moved -- position, size, opacity, or some combination?

📋 Main Workshop / Lesson Sequence

This lesson spans 2 Days. Suggested pacing:

DayFocusPlan
Day 1Learn & TryDo Now (5 min, above). Mini-lesson (15 min): what a keyframe is, using the free companion book The Motion Path (Ch. 4.6) as a reference for the concept even though it's written for Premiere Pro specifically. Practice (20 min): animate one simple text element moving and fading in using at least 2 keyframes.
Day 2Apply & ExportIndependent work (30 min): add a keyframed animation to a real title or graphic in your own video project. Export (10 min): export the finished clip.

✅ Assessment & Exit Ticket

Finished clip assessed for a genuine, deliberate keyframed animation (not just a built-in template effect) applied to at least one element.

Exit Ticket: What property did you animate, and how many keyframes did it actually take to get the motion looking right?

📊 Pull up the anonymous Class Check-In for students to fill out before they go.

🧩 Differentiation & Accommodations

English Language Learners: provide translated or bilingual glossaries, visuals, and sentence frames; pair with a peer for meaningful participation. Students with IEPs: provide extended time, step-by-step checklists, and one-on-one or small-group support as specified in each student's plan. Attention-related needs: break the task into smaller steps, use visual timers, and minimize distractions. Students who finish early: extend the task by adding a second design variation, mentoring a classmate, or writing a short reflection connecting today's skill to a career pathway.

🔗 Resources & References