Explain Everything: Landscapes, Cityscapes

I'll be visiting a 3rd grade Social Studies class this week who are exploring different kinds of communities: rural, suburban, and urban. An idea I hope to try with them is to create animated 'scapes' where they can tell me (and each other and their teachers) what they know and what they have learned about each community. Students can work in groups of three with each member preparing one of the communities. The background image can be a long, narrow drawing on the stage (see image below). The reason is so that it can be moved along the stage slowly to create a panning effect.

The background image can be recorded moving first, and then the record mode switched to 'Mix' mode. Then, a new character can be drawn in and animated on top of the already moving background. Below is a proof of concept video of the end product. Note: there is no sound because I created this while on an airplane so I didn't record any audio!).