Stop Animation 2015

I'm proud of my upper elementary students!  I kinda just threw the idea of stop animation at them right before Spring Break and gave them a chance to see what they could make.  Students were given the option of sending me their video, so what you see here is just a sampling of what they created.  Keep in mind that most of these kids are stop motion rookies. Thanks for watching!

Stop Animation Videos

I love the Animation Chefs and how they try to teach animating skills to kids, so I thought I would bring them to my middle school students.  I gave my kids time to watch their videos, learn some tips and tricks, and apply them to their own video creations.  It took nearly two weeks worth of classes, but today they showed off their final projects. (And I might add that I'm kinda proud of how they look in the end.)

Sam and Dom:

Three Little Pigs from Craig Dunlap on Vimeo.

Jacob, Drew, and Kate:


Waite and Cooper:


Justin and Matthew:


Daniel and Connor:


Just in case you're wondering about the process we used in class, the instructions are here.

Which is your favorite? 

Epic Full-Length Stop Animator Project

In my seventeen years of teaching sixth grade, I can honestly say it's rare to see every student engaged, enjoying a lesson, and learning something.  That's why I'm so excited about the Epic Full-Length Stop Animator Project.

The goal of our project is to create a 90-180 second stop animation video.  A few weeks ago, we did a short video project, and the kids enjoyed it.  While the video-making process was fun, the final product left me wondering if we could do better.  I enlisted the help of a friend of mine who is an animation guru (media professor at a local university) and got started on creating a great project.  You can see our instructions here.

Today was the second day of the project, and the kids were merely planning.  They were working on storyboards, drawing on the white board, trying new camera angles, and figuring things out.  It was so cool to just look out over the class and see every student working, interacting, and...enjoying it.  The plans are diverse: clay, Legos, ants in love eating watermelon, construction paper sandwiches, poodles in Paris, and an action figure-eating toy.

Next week, they will do their actual filming, but I had to share this one short practice video of the creation of Clay Man.

This is going to be cool!

Stop Motion Videos

Lesson ideas can come from a strange place.  I work with 5th graders at my church, which is where I met Billy (name changed).  Within seconds of meeting Billy, he was showing me stop motion videos on his iPod Touch. I immediately saw an opportunity to make a connection, so I whipped out my iPad, downloaded the Stop Aminator app and had myself some fun.

Little did I realize that I'd be using it in my 6th grade computer class a week and a half later.  I'm going to present you with four videos here.  The first is an example for the kids to see.  The middle two were made by students.  The last -- the chair video -- was an attempt I made while the kids were playing around.  I'll be the first to admit that our first efforts at stop motion videos needs some help, but I'm excited to try it again later.  I'd love to do a "feature-length" video -- say one to two minutes long.  

The best part is that I now have students in 5th and 6th grades who are excited to get iPad time so they can create more videos.  

Enjoy our first attempts!