Maker Monday: Stop Motion Animation

Our program is geared toward children entering 3rd – 6th grade in the fall.  We only register 20 kids for the program because we only have 10 iPads and with technology and science programs, less is more. This is our second Maker Monday program of the summer featuring our iPads and the creation of stop motion animation movies that the kids created themselves.

Stop Motion Animation

We had about 18-20 kids show up, so there were 2-3 kids on each iPad working together to create their movie.  We first talked about stop motion and what it takes to create a stop motion animated movie and then I really just let the kids loose!  I ended up giving them about 40 minutes to work on their projects and in reality, they probably could have worked for at least another hour.  It took a lot of time for some of them to decide on a storyline and plot using the options we had.  I gave them the chance to use clay, Lego mini-figures, backdrops I created, and paper, crayons, and other craft supplies.

I was so amazed by how well the kids did and how much time they spent working on their projects. Usually, you’ll get that one group who finished their project in 5 minutes and doesn’t want to do anything else, but these groups tried a variety of different things and continued working on their projects and really thought creatively for cool solutions to problems.  We used the iPad app – Smoovie – which was a free option, not too difficult to use and the kids were amazed to see their creations at the end of the hour.  

As I said, if I offer this program again, I’d more than likely give them a couple of hours to work on it, maybe offering time slots on a Saturday or day off from school to give them the time they really needed.  Needless to say, the kids had a lot of fun and I enjoyed watching them work!