Naomi Meredith  00:00

Stop motion animation is one of my most favorite units to teach students. It requires minimal materials for students to be successful, but involves a high level of creativity and critical thinking. Well, the audio from this episode has never been heard before on this podcast. This presentation is from an online summit I did in the past the teach with tech conference, you'll get an intro to stop motion animation, a list of tools to get started explanation of student examples and ways to extend this lesson even further with other resources. 

Naomi Meredith  00:32

And stop motion is one of those things that I feel like anybody can do. It's not as hard as you think. So what in the world are we doing today? Well, I'm going to give you an introduction to stop motion, so you can be an expert on it. I'm also going to be showing you some tools to get started with stop motion in your classroom, which these are minimal tools. And so that's great news. I also have some student examples to share with you and then some other extensions to take your stop motion to the next level when you're ready. Or if you're ready already, this is for you. 

Naomi Meredith  01:37

So in short, what in the world is stop motion animation? Well, stop motion is a lot of pictures played with tiny movements really, really fast to make things look like they are moving on their own. So you probably have seen examples of this, which we will show. But basically all those tiny pictures are doing all the animation for you. So animation experience is not needed. Anyone can make it look awesome. You're probably more familiar with stop motion than you think. These are some examples of stop motion used in popular movies. Oftentimes I will show clips for my students because they are amazed how fluid the movements are, they can't believe that a computer didn't do all the work. Gumby is stop motion animation with all of its interesting characters. So that is probably one you're familiar with. A year without a Santa Claus, they use a lot more puppets, and that also has stop motion animation. And then chicken run, and all those movies along those same lines are also made with stop motion animation. A big misnomer is that the LEGO Movie is not made with stop motion animation. It was actually made to look like it was created that way because LEGO is typically used in stop motion animation with kids, so they wanted to give that feel. But it actually wasn't made that way. It was made with real animation. 

Naomi Meredith  03:10

So when you're thinking about this technology tool, why in the world should you use it. It's so old, who cares? Actually, there are some benefits to it. Stop Motion brings stationary objects and topics to life. It also doesn't require a lot of tools. So that is great news, especially as teachers, we don't always have access to unlimited resources. You can pretty much use anything when it comes to stop motion. The biggest thing that I love about this is that it teaches patience and problem solving. And I'll show you some picture examples with this. But the critical thinking and problem solving happens in front of the camera. The kids aren't spending a whole lot of time on their device until they start editing. But to make a really great video, it takes so much patience and problem solving for it to make sense. Those are things we want for our kids. Right? The technology piece. There's lots of different options out there. What I've started with is this free app stop motion studio. This works amazing, and it's a great place to start. Actually when I came into this STEM position in the first year, when I tried stop motion animation, I downloaded the free app on our iPads. Then the next year I was looking through my app management system and I actually had this one purchase from the previous teacher. I had no idea the kids had no idea and we were very successful with this free version. So totally go there. You don't need to upgrade. As of right now, during this presentation, you can get it on iPads, Google Play, and Kindle Fire depending on your device compatibility, all for free. Start with the free. If you are able to let's say you have one iPad or two iPads in your classroom and you don't mind upgrading, you can buy the Stop Motion Studio Pro. It has additional editing options and LEGO faces that you can add on so has like more real animation to add in your stop motion. There's also the options of green screen and you can do more editing within the app, I will show you some other apps at the end. So if you are just using the free version, I'm going to show you some other options if you don't feel like upgrading. 

Naomi Meredith  05:42

Now with the Stop Motion Studio Pro again, it is compatible on these three types of devices. Then you can also purchase the software for computer programs. So this would be best with for Macs and Windows, if you are able to upgrade or if you write a donor's choose or if you have a classroom budget, the HUE Document Camera, which I know has other benefits outside of stop motion animation. So it might be worth the investment. But the HUE Document Camera also has an option of stop motion animation software. And so each of those can be bought separately, or it can be bought together as a package. I'm not an affiliate, I'm just giving you free information. But this might be an option as well. So again, if you are a classroom teacher, or even a STEM teacher, if you bought one of these cameras and had a station in your classroom, that could be an option. So don't feel like you have to have a device for every single student. In fact, stop motion works very well when it comes to collaborating and assigning roles. So that might be just something to keep in mind, depending on your situation. So lots of different options out there. If you even wanted to go super cheap, you could take a lot of pictures on a phone, like if you really trust your kids with a phone or if you have old little tablets that don't connect to Wi Fi or don't have cell service, you can take a lot of pictures that way, and then swipe through and it looks like it's moving. So I've heard of kids actually doing that before they come to my class. And they're so grateful to have the app, but you don't even need to have a special app to do this. So when it comes to the materials you can use, these are just some options to get started. Honestly, you can just use paper as a prop. I will actually show you an example of how paper was used in stop motion. So these are things that kids could bring from home. Again, if you have donations, or you have a little budget, these are great places to get started. There's actually a whole YouTube channel for stickbots. It's a brand and there are some good clips on there kind of filter through and watch them first before you show the kids. But these have little string on them and it moves their joints so they move a little more human like so that can help when kids are trying to make a video of a person walking it moves a little bit better than a minifigure.

Naomi Meredith  08:09

Play-Doh is a great option as well because kids can mold and change their characters. I love Play-Doh and then I also discovered Crayola has a great modeling clay. What's great about modeling clay is that it doesn't dry out so they can leave their creations for a week. I had an after school club for stop motion animation, and kids would make things with modeling clay. We would leave it high up on the shelf and then they came back to their work and it was perfectly fine. It's very inexpensive. It's actually a little bit cheaper than play-doh. So keep an eye out for that Crayola modeling clay. LEGO, of course, amazing kids love it. Great option to build settings, characters, all sorts of things. Masking tape is great on hand if they're trying to tape things to the background, construction paper, and of course many fakes. There's lots of knockoffs of minifigs on Amazon so that you can look into that, depending on your class or school roles, even encourage kids to bring that from home and really encourage mixing these mediums. They can really bring their settings and their videos to life. So behind the scenes, here's what it typically looks like in my classroom. The other thing I really love about using stop motion is that all the work is done in front of the camera. So you can see an example right here. I had iPad stands, which again, this isn't something you have to have, but we had an iPad stand they zoomed in, they would move it like take make their little setting, move their character, take a picture, move their character take a picture. 

Naomi Meredith  14:53

They were back and forth the whole time, but it doesn't have to be silent in my classroom. I know that can be hard when you're filming and there's 25 kids or they're trying to make video goes stop motion is that recording the sound, you can make a stop motion video without sound. And it's great. I have an example of that also to show you, and all that if they do want to add sound that can be done later. And usually, with timing wise, you have one group that finishes really fast, they might be out in the hall adding sound, the rest of the class is working away, and they can talk and collaborate that way. So that's what I love, it doesn't have to be completely silent to make this work. Here's another example. This iPad, I believe, has a stand on the back. But I've seen kids actually make iPad stands with Legos to make their iPad stand up. So being inventive in a different way. But you can see that they've zoomed in on their screen on their setting. And you can't even really see all this background actually wanted part of it in there. But there's just a lot of little materials in their thing. If you kind of can see in this picture, there also is a LEGO base plate. And a little tip that I have seen kids use is each peg on the base plate, they move it one by one, to make their story look more fluid. So the tinier the movements, the better the video is going to be. Here's some all other behind the scenes, this is from after school club that I hosted. This is actually that modeling clay that I was talking about. And since we had more time for this project, we actually filmed our videos using blue screen or green screen. So we still use that stop motion app. You can use the free one again. But we made sure that we filmed it in front of a background that we could change later. The reason why this is a blue screen is because if you can kind of see here, the stamps of these flowers are green. And we didn't want them to disappear when we change the background. And this is actually a blue t shirt that we had. And so we're going to change that later. And this image right here, I do have one of my walls painted green in my classroom. So we push the table up against the wall, we use the green face plate. And then she started filming her video here. And what was funny about this one, she actually decided she liked it without changing the background. So she actually left it like this and didn't end up changing it. Here's what a screenshot of a stop motion video would look like. This is actually the stop motion studio. This is from their website. And so this is what the app would look like. Very, very, very simple. So the kids would this one is already finished. But typically the image would be behind them. And there would be a red button for them to press once they have their object in the place that they like. So they move their character little take a picture, move a little ticker picture. This one has 101 frames, which we call them frames, that is great. You really want to encourage this, like I said before, the tinier the movements, the more pictures you take, the better your stop motion video is going to be. When kids are first getting started, they typically will take about 15 to 30 pictures. And at first glance, you're like, Oh, that looks really awesome. But they're usually really choppy. And they're over in two seconds. So the better the more patient and the smaller the movements, the better their video is going to be. So these videos can take time, you can get it done probably in a couple of days. But if you really block out that time, if you can get them done and have them be really awesome. So you might be a classroom teacher, you don't teach them. And you're thinking, Well, why would I even use this? Like this is so cool, but how can I even use stop motion. If I were to go back to the regular classroom, as myself, I would use that motion. And here's why. You can use this in so many ways. This is just to get your wheels turning, you can show the comprehension of the story by retelling it through stop motion, comprehension and main idea and summarizing are big standards for kids. Why not have them show it in a different way through stop motion, it can help kids of all different comprehension levels. And you can even pair those kids up in differentiated pairs. That would work so great. So try set motion for one of your units. Fairy tales worked very well for this. You can also have kids show vocabulary or vocabulary words from the text. And again, that is another way to bring it to life instead of just drawing I know not all kids love to draw. Why not have them create those vocabulary words and maybe the other kids in the class can try to guess what word they're trying to show. Stop Motion can  be another way for students to publish their final piece, they could create a stop motion to visually show their writing. So maybe as they maybe they do still type a final piece. And then they add a stop motion to go with it. And they could put a little QR code in their published piece to show kids the animated part of it. So that would be really, really fun. A great extension to writing. You could also use this in math. So with stop motion, you could have kids visually show a word problem and what's actually happening happening in the word problem. So if Tommy has 100 watermelons and gets rid of 50, how many legs does he have left? Well have the kids make a stop motion animation, and then they could show the work to solve it. And I bet you would have some great submissions for that. And that helps with that comprehension. Again, you can also have students show visually how things grow and change over time within science. And I have a similar example to this that paper example I'll show you in a little bit. But you could have them show a process. So if you're doing lifecycles, you can have the kids just with paper, draw each stage of the lifecycle and show that through stop motion, you can even again with that, instead of doing the circle form of the lifecycle, you can have them actually show the progression of it growing up, I've had kids do both. Both are pretty awesome. So that can bring those kinda like I guess, a little more boring, which I never think science is boring, but maybe it's boring for some of you to make it more fun with stop motion. And then if you're doing some history, you could have them create a stop motion of historical events on a timeline. So each group could have a different point on the timeline, acted out with stop motion, and then they could you could show those stop motions in order of when it happened to help them connect something visual to the abstract idea. So here's the fun stuff. Student examples. Here is one we did with fairy tale. So I mentioned fairy tales are a really good one for stop motion. This is like one of the best ways to get started. Have kids pick a fairy tale that they are familiar with and show it visually with stop motion. This one you probably can guess is, you guessed Jack in the beanstalk. You are correct. I love this one because this little guy he didn't speak a whole lot in my class. But his video was so clear and made sense. And he made his little beanstalk with the LEGO mixed up the greens and then wrapped around some modeling clay to make the vines. I was like, oh my goodness, can I take a picture? And he's all Yeah, so thank you little guy. This one with comprehension. I'll show you a little bit is where we took a story we took the day the crayons came home or the day the crayons quit. I've done both. And each group had a different part of the story. This is a good story you can break up if you haven't read the book. Go get it. It's amazing. It's hilarious. But each group had a different page and they had to create the character this character is made with modeling clay paper and then a marker cap and then no crayons were harmed in the making of this video. We hung that up in our classroom. And then we put all the videos together into one. So it's actually a stop motion retelling of the story. I'll show you a little bit you will have access to this video. But just so you can kind of see what's going on. We added them some sound of course. Come home by Drew and Al. Parents, Charles and Charles to taught me to always make room for everyone.

Naomi Meredith  19:00

They wanted to read it together. One day we're happily coloring together with a strange stack of postcards arrived for him in the mail My name is the only close so you didn't get the point they ended up doing some editing later. So this is like towards the end this took a week in a club. But and we also filmed with green screen. And so that was just another way that we could bring a story to life each kids work separately and then we brought it together as a group so that was really really fun and they were so excited to show their families. Couple other examples fairy tale. This challenge was pick the fairy tale and you have to create a stop motion and we have to guess what it was. There is no sound in these videos. So I will show you you can see the answer already. But this is Little Red Riding Hood no Sound, we didn't have any grade for the wolf. So that was the hunter getting them off. And then began. So that was a 13. Second video, there was probably about 200 pictures taken and four kids actually worked on this stop motion. And they were from different classes. This was an after school club, but I've done this regular class too. Okay, this one tortoise and the hare. So they mix together LEGO and clay, and they found the eyeballs from the LEGO bends. This one is pretty smooth, I think they took about 300 pictures, and it's only 16 seconds. So you see, the more pictures you take, the smaller the movements, the better it's going to be. So those are linked down below. Again, you can also use paper as a medium, when you don't have a lot of materials like or money to spend paper is also a great option. So we will pull up this one is how a fossil is formed, I probably won't show the whole thing. This one is pretty long, and they have sound if it will pull up for us. So they actually wrote words, they wrote a letter took a picture, data, great job selling fossil, and did little movements along the way they wanted to add sound we just did not have time. So you can get the point that one is a minute long. And then here's another one. So it's showing a process. This one was about the human body for fifth grade. So fifth grade, they studied each studied a part of the human body, and then they had to explain all about it with a stop motion. The kids in this group were amazing artists, I was just shocked they did not trace it. But this was all done was stop motion and paper. And this was done with the free app the year I didn't know I had the paid one. One thing you notice there's a lot of flashing in the background, I suggested to them to put paper on a solid background. So they wouldn't have that flashing, but it's pretty smooth. So great stop motion example right there. You kind of seen this in the examples I've shown you but you can have other extensions. So if you want to add in green screen, you could upgrade to the Stop Motion Studio Pro. Or if you just want to go ahead and purchase the Green Screen by DoInk, this is a wonderful green screen app for any project anyway, I would suggest purchasing that that would be worth your investment very, very, very easy. And great for kids to see how green screen actually works. They also have an animation app. So not stop motion animation where you take tiny, tiny pictures, but you can actually add layers of characters and cartoons on top of your work. So that's again, another great investment. iMovie actually has the addition of green screen I haven't played around with it yet. I've heard mixed reviews about it iMovie screen, but you also have to have a Apple device to use that. But I love teaching kids iMovie I think it's great for kids to know lots of different platforms so they can transfer that knowledge. So I will oftentimes, I won't always show them in the stop motion app that they can do editing because I want them to learn iMovie and use everything. So that's something I try with them stick that studio is an alternative stop motion app. I've had kids like it some kids not this is also free. I've had more success with the Stop Motion Studio app. But that's just up to you for you can have kids try it out, especially if they've done it before. 

Naomi Meredith  23:33

There's lots of books out there. These are a couple I would recommend for you to check out these were at Michaels. I'm sure you can find them on Amazon, but they have some great tips and tricks for getting started and those be awesome to have in your classroom library for kids to learn more who are interested. Excited to jump into stop motion animation even more. I put together a collection of resources to help you get started. You can grab the video recording of this episode. The video slides I referenced throughout student examples and bonuses for only $5 I wish I could buy a new Kindle book for that cheap. Let me tell you, it's not usually that good of a deal. The bonus PDF includes a plot storyboard for students to brainstorm their stop motion story in a sequential order a project checklists to help students stay on track throughout their project and an anchor chart where you can add ideas as a class when discoveries are made as to what makes a great stop motion animation. If you're looking for even more than that, I even created a special bundle for you that will not only include this whole video replay with bonuses, but a stop motion animation guide to walk you through the whole process with a detailed week long collaborative less than a paleontologist and fossil project and a zoo ologists and pollination Project everything you will need to kick off your stop motion animation journey and using lessons that my own students have absolutely loved. This will be linked in the show notes and you can check it out all here. Naomi meredith.com/stopmotionbundle.