The animation ideas provided for children and shared by Teaching Ideas are a great introduction to the whole concept of making animations.
“We recently spent a few days thinking about animation. The children had been making their own stop motion animations (using I Can Animate and iMovie) with considerable success. We’ve been making these for many years now and we seem to learn new tricks each and every time we make another. The children were all incredibly enthused by their stop-motion animations, so I wanted to take advantage of this by trying other forms of animation. Here are some of the activities that we did during our ‘Animation Days‘” (Mark Warner – Teaching Ideas Website)
The ideas on this site are largely not digital, right up until the very last activity – it is exploring what animation is and how it can be made. These may be an ideal starter for younger children. Also there is a list of useful apps for making stop animations added at the end of the post.
Zu3D share a PDF lesson plan, entitled Animate a Story which is a detailed complete lesson plan for using with a fairy tale, or well known story for KS1 aged children. “Whether it is to enhance literacy skills or explain a science topic, Zu3D allows children to quickly and easily create mini movies to demonstrate their knowledge. Alongside demonstrating their knowledge, students gain valuable skills in team work, problem solving and communication. Download the Zu3D Mind Map to show your school how you could be bringing the curriculum to life.” (Zu3D)
NB The Zu3D software is not free! I love the animation ideas for children shared in the gallery at this site!
Cloud Stop Motion has a free trial which leads to a completely free school account!
“Free organization/school accounts with unlimited student users.” (Cloud Stop Motion)
The free account offers:
- 2GB of storage as standard
- Unlimited student accounts
- Unlimited student groups/classes
- Manage student accounts
- Unlimited organization administrators
- Students and administrators can access their accounts from anywhere on any modern device
The Early Learning HQ shares a good list of animation software for use with younger children. They provide brief descriptions of various apps and their costs.