Your instructional videos will have a cleaner, more professional feel if you have a simple theme going on in all of them. This helps them to belong together and might even give your students something to look forward to when they watch your videos.

How I use Theming:

Just like in my classes, I like to start and end my videos the same way each time.

Though I use different background music in many of my videos, I use the same “introduction” sound in all of my videos that plays with the title screen of the video.

At the end of videos I usually say “happy practicing” and that signals that the instructional portion of the video is over. I might, however leave a metronome track going for students to practice with after I offer that salutation.

At the end of “ninja challenge” videos I usually find some sort of ninja quote to say at the end of the video. This was a fun thing that the kids seemed to enjoy and it gives them the opportunity to hear some famous words. I looked for things about integrity, perseverance, creativity, and other positive poster-y sorts of things. I also always mentioned who spoke these words. You never know what kids are going to pick up on.

That’s it – keep it simple! You probably have brilliant theming ideas! Share them!