This is my first animation, it's a ball bouncing up and down. I learned about a few principles of animation to make this look good. First being ease in/ease out. The ball speeds up the closer it is to the ground. The other being squash and stretch, the ball distorts, but keeps its volume, giving it a more natural look.
    With the extra time I had, I decided add a cloud in the background. It moves across the picture and loops back around. It doesn't look too realistic because it moves pretty fast, but if I slowed it down, the ball wouldn't loop properly.












Here's an article about the basics of easing in and out


This is a really high quality video about squash and stretch: