Weekly Reflection #3 — Stop Motion In and Out of the Classroom
Last week and this week we explored the world of stop motion and how we can use it to provide a valuable, fun STEM lesson for our students. It was fairly little preparation and the result is less related to the knowledge of the video maker and more about their creativity and collaboration with other students. Below you will find some steps to a successful stop motion lesson, some videos about how to create stop motion and some tips for using the app.
Steps to a successful stop motion lesson with students:
- Introduce the concept of stop motion and show some sample stop motion videos to your students.
- Ensure that you have a good stop motion app for students to use. The one we used was Stop Motion Studio (blue background with old movie reel machine).
- Decide on the size of working groups. I would recommend 2-4 people total per group.
- Provide everyone with some toys, Lego, manipulatives and supplies for making backdrops etc. Students might even bring some of these things from home or teachers could collect over a period of time.
- Provide equipment like a tripod, backdrops, device for recording, lighting etc.
- Give groups planning time and resources. We used a stop motion planning sheet.
- Give groups full creative design. The sky is the limit! Remember to give them a time limit.
- After everyone has created have a “show party” where everyone gets to view the stop motion videos everyone created. This could be done on the classroom laptop or on a share app like Seesaw.
- Have a reflection period. Let students share what they learned and what they wish they could do differently next time.
- Plan your next stop motion activity!
Does Stop Motion fit into BC Curriculum?
I’m glad you asked! Yes, you can fit Stop Motion video creations into ADST curriculum straight through from Kindergarten to Grade 9. It would be a great opportunity for a buddy project with a younger class and older class, or even a school-wide challenge for families — you could provide the above ideas and have families create a video within a deadline and show all the videos in the gym on the big screen! So many options and ideas!
You can see below that Stop Motion would fit into the Big Ideas for K-9, under all three categories: design, skills and technologies. Stop motion projects could be scaffolded over the years to be increasingly more complex and include more tools and design/planning stages. For more details, click on the links to read the ADST content and curricular competencies.
ADST K-9 Curricular Competencies
More Amazing Stop Motion Resources & Ideas
Click on images to visit websites
This website links stop motion back to English Language arts and storytelling.
This website has some really great ideas, resources and sample stop motion videos done by students!
This website is amazing! It has tons of ideas, options for planning sheets for the student’s animated stop boards and even rubric and assessment strategies.
Is Stop Motion just for K-12 students?
On the contrary. Stop motion is bigger than you think. There are huge You Tube content creators who have made impressive stop motion videos. You’ve probably seen the ones with miniature items like food for cooking or tiny knives cutting fruit or clay-mation films. There are also some really impressive stop motion animated movies that have been produced. Here are the top winners according to Rotten Tomatoes.
The Future is bright for Stop Motion!
The future of stop motion seems to be bright! Over time it has evolved as technology has involved. I remember non-tech stop motion when I was in elementary school was little flip books that we drew one stick person over an over on a little book of sheets and each page we “moved” the figure a tiny bit to make it look like he/she was moving when we flipped through the pages as fast as we could. Now, stop motion involves app, technology and even 3D printing. The sky is literally the limit! Wow!
