Animation with Reception (Early Years)

This was a day I was slightly dreading, animation with 4 and 5 year olds. But it was great fun, animating fuzzy felt, on the farm fuzzy felt, so didn't have to make models, was straight out the box animation. I worked with small groups at a time, four or five, there were times when some of them did it on their own, moving the farmer and then taking the required shots, counting together as the did, as a team. I worked with the groups for about 20-30 mins at a time.

We created short scenes, then added them together in iMovie and using a USB Mic on a Hue web cam we added our short script.

The animation day was held at Church View Primary School in East Barnet, London. The first of three days, introducing animation into different Key stages, with a focus on literacy, encoraging students to plan a story, write a script, acting out their script using iMovie and a Mic and then sharing their finished work.

According to the Reception class teacher the students had to watch their film about 20 times before they got bored!

So if you're planning on animating with reception you can't go wrong with fuzzy felt!

Sue Baylik From East Barnet LA, arranged my visits and observed the days, below are some of her thoughts on the various outcomes.

Visiting Oscar’s Animation Workshops in Barnet

When I visited and observed a series of animation workshops run by Oscar, I felt that what I was watching was what education is all about. Oscar worked with a YR class, Y6 class and a Y8 class.

The first obvious element present was enjoyment. Throughout the days, the learners were smiling and laughing while working happily alongside each other. There was no difficult behaviour to manage in any of the classes.

Leading on from this, was their ability to cooperate and support each other. One teacher spoke about how pleased she was as the class did not always work in this way. Also, at the end of the session, the learners were eager to look at the films of the other groups and were positive and enthusiastic about their colleagues’ efforts. Animated(!) discussion not argument was the order of the day. Some learners did have to be ‘helped’ not to be camera, animator and computer person all at the same time, but by the end all the groups were working well together. It was interesting to observe the dynamics of the very successful, focused groups and those who needed more TLC.

Animated poems

This is one of five short animated poems made by year 10 students at Bishops Candellor School in Birmingham.

The poem is short, making it ideal for animating and adapting in a day, also it's very visual and the students made great use of sound to help the narrative. In fact the sound is crucial to this idea working.

A mix of fun shorts made by year 11 students.

I love these short animations for their inventiveness and simplicity. They were made in only four hours!

The students were taking part in a creative day to de-stress before their exams.

Enjoy

Animation in Cornwall-Mixed media

The first animation, made by teachers in Cornwall is a great example of mixing up your media.

Fuzzy felt is great fun and instant, good for KS 1 and early years. Very easy for them to animate.

These films are fresh from the Cornish coast, made yesterday. Enjoy, great models and fun simple stories.

Creative literacy day at the Institute of Education

Hope these films don't disturb you, they have been made for eight year olds! By trainee teachers on a one day creative literacy day. The films are to be screened at the BFI to a select group of year two and three students, after the viewing the students will be given the opportunity to discuss the films with the trainee teachers who made them. They're all adaptations of books Year 2 and 3 could be familiar with.

Another cycle of life.

This short animation was made today with teachers in Taunton. The small group of Primary teachers used the Hue webcam. A colorful webcam costing £20.00, great quality, with a focus ring and digital zoom feature, works with I Can Animate and SM Animator. Another great quality webcam being used on the course was a Creative webcam. The new generation webcams on the market are much better quality and also very affordable.

Science project using animation

A simple but effective way of showing a class how the water cycle works. This animation was made during a school day in Dorset as part of the SWGFL animation training scheme. Great for VLE's.