Stop Motion

Grades:

Fourth Grade

Resources/Materials used with Stop Motion:

  • ipad
  • ipad stands
  • Storyboard planning template
  • Lego Movie app
  • Stop Motion app [we use the app with the blue background and the white movie camera icon]
  • Legos, clay, or small toys [I simply put out an email to families asking for unwanted Happy Meal toys, plastic dinosaurs/animals, hot wheels, and other small toys.
  • Background [we use white foam board for the base and the back]

Concepts/Skills:

  • Inquiry process
  • Storyboarding
  • Collaboration
  • Stop-Motion animation techniques
  • Patience and Perseverance
  • Iteration
  • Failing forward
  • Learning from peer evaluation
  • Creativity
  • Creating for an audience

Instruction:

  • Students answered the following questions through the inquiry process
    • What is stop-motion?
    • What materials will you need?
    • What are the steps to complete a Stop Motion project?
    • What will make your stop motion animation successful?
    • Students also included any questions they were still wondering about after researching
  • Students watched A LOT of stop-motion animation [good and bad] and used those examples to determine what they wanted in their own stop-motion project final product. We jotted down a list of successes and failures in those examples and looked back at that list every so often.
  • We also consulted an expert stop-motion animator [the 6th grade son of a colleague who is an amazing lego animator. We asked him questions about his own work after viewing his work.
  • Before storyboarding our own story we simply practiced with 3 "props" just to get to know the 2 apps available, what tools each had to offer, and how to make small movements. We practiced for 2 time periods.
  • Students could work by themselves, in pairs or in groups of three.
  • Their stop-motion had to be 30 seconds or less. I have learned from experience that movies beyond 30 seconds lose their storyline. So we work on short, concise and entertaining.
  • Students could write their storyboard and then select their props or the could select their props and write a story around those characters.
  • When storyboards were completed, the groups got work. We practiced, sought out feedback, improved, made changes, learned how to add sounds and music, learned about titles, and most importantly worked together as collaborators.
  • If I noticed that several groups were having the same problem, I would stop and teach a mini lesson.
  • My kids could have worked forever on this project so I finally had to set a deadline for completing their movie and air-dropping it to my.
  • I then took all the stop-motion movies and put them together into imovie for the entire school to view.
  • The kids were really proud of their work and this has become a really neat project for younger kids to look forward to.

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