Stop Motion and KOMA KOMA

Hey there!

I had a wonderful time Friday at the Integrated Arts Conference at Plymouth State University in Plymouth, NH. It is so fun to connect with other teachers and create. In case you didn't get a chance to check it out, a colleague and I presented about digital storytelling and shared a TON of info and links to get started (check out the post here).

The attendees only had about 15 minutes to play with stop motion animation, but had fun with clay, Lego, and drawing as they created their masterpieces.

I wanted to do a little post about the stop motion APP I chose to use on Friday. KOMA KOMA is a neat stop motion app I was introduced to about a year or so ago. It's an easy-to-use app that only has four buttons. Yep, FOUR. So it is easy to use and a great introduction to animation for even your youngest kiddos (or hesitant grown-ups).

Never done stop motion animation before? No problem! No money for software and digital cameras? No problem! KOMA KOMA is free and uses the digital camera in the iPad! The KOMA KOMA website is fascinating--those folks are designing some very cool things! 

How To Use It:
Just do it! Here's a quick screen shot from the KOMA KOMA website that explains how to use the APP. Click here to see it larger and to get additional tips on the KOMA KOMA website.

Image Source: KOMA KOMA
(http://komakoma.org/en/?page_id=671)

Some Examples:
Check out the Digital Storytelling folder on my GoogleDrive to see what the attendees created. Remember, we didn't have much time, but you'll get the idea. The sky's the limit here! This is what grown-ups did with only about 15 minutes of time and no prior experience with KOMA KOMA. With more time and scaffolding, your students could really excel! So, check out KOMA KOMA and see what you come up with.

Another feature I LOVE about KOMA KOMA is that you have the option to create a printable flip book from your animation--instantly! That is really cool as a takeaway for the students since animation doesn't always give you a lasting product for the students to take home to share. Just print out the flip book on card stock, cut out and assemble--the pages are already numbered (hint: use a binder clip to hold the sturdy pages together for flipping).

Here's a screenshot of one of the flip books the attendees created from their animation
(it was a short animation, so the flip book is short as well).

A Student's Perspective:
I usually teach stop motion animation with another app called StopMotion Studio by Cateater, LLC. It's also easy to use and students like the fact they can add sound to their movies. I thought KOMA KOMA might be a better solution for us, since it was easier to use. Here's what one student said:

"I like Stop Motion better since you can add sound. I don't think it's that hard to use [Stop Motion]. It just does more than KOMA KOMA."

SO, perhaps KOMA KOMA would be good for younger students or students who are new to using APPs and doing stop motion.

How do you do animation?
Do you do stop motion animation with your students? What programs do you use, or are you old school and use a digital camera? I'd love to hear about it! Comment below or email me!

"This is Our Story:" An Intro to Digital Storytelling

I'm so excited to be be co-leading a session at the Integrated Arts Conference at Plymouth State University. My colleague, Tiffany Dube, and I will be talking about Digital Storytelling. Tiffany is sharing a bunch of (mostly) free and fabulous tools educators can use with their students to create comic strips,  audio files, books and more. I am going to talk about using stop motion animation and give attendees some time to play around with a couple different APPs I've used with students. It should be fun!

Here's the Thinglink clickable image I've created with all of our resources and links--check it out!

Integrating the Arts: Art, Science & The Persistence of Vision

Monday night I had the pleasure of volunteering at Amherst PTA's Math & Science Night at Wilkin's Elementary School in Amherst, NH. The Math & Science night is a free non-commercial event where families can come together and enjoy playing with math and science concepts. There were all sorts of good things there: games, voting & graphing, fishing for fractions, using microscopes, learning about sound waves and more--all in a fun & relaxed setting.


I asked if I could come and set up a table where art and science were used together. Combining science and art is probably one of the most fun things to do (I often tell my husband that if this art teacher thing doesn't work out I am becoming an earth science teacher. To which he replies with raised eyebrows!).

Anyhow, I needed to create a project that would entice children to stop at my table, stay a couple minutes, have a high success rate, and be cheap (hey, I'm paying for this and I didn't know if I was going to have 100 or 300 kids at this event!). So, I chose a basic animation "machine" called the Thaumatrope. Here's my original post here with the "how to."I used plastic drinking straws instead of skewers because they were safer.

Here are some of the examples of Thaumatropes I brought to the event.
Compare the two images to see the front and the back of each...

Here are some photos from the event...

My display explaining lenticular animation & optical illusions (top portion)
and animation and the persistence of vision (bottom portion).

The work area before the kids arrived. I had all the supplies they needed
in each tray and directions in case I wasn't able to get to the right away.
These Thaumatropes cost about 2 cents each to make (not including the colored pencils).

And just to prove I actually had children visit me, here's a photo of a few
girls working at my table. This was at the end of the night. At one point it was
standing room only at my table! Visitors ended up making 100 Thaumatropes that night!

How it went:

Great! I tried to think of some great hook to get children to stop and do my project—I was worried it would seem like too much work. So I would say—“Hey, do you want to make a magic picture?—It only takes a minute!” and then I’d show them a couple of examples. My favorite was one that I created that has an image of a top hat on one side. I showed this to the children and said “I can make a rabbit come out of this hat—want to see?” And then, when I spun it, the rabbit (image from the other side) appears. It was really fun seeing the look of awe on some of the kids’ faces when they saw the two images come together!

The Lesson:

Because I had about 30 seconds per child to explain the concept, I tried to be pretty descriptive when showing them the examples. I’d say the following:

• See how there is one picture on this side and one on the other side?

• When you draw your two pictures, they will come together when you spin your thaumatrope—so think about that when you draw—use pencil first so we can try it out.

• Don’t worry if it doesn’t work at first—this is tricky! I made mistakes too (I had one of my mistakes on hand to show them)—if you make a mistake, you can erase, or make another one—I have more!

I had all sorts of creative Thaumatropes made: a cheetah leaping into a tree, a sugar glider leaping from a tree, a Star Wars light saber battle, all sorts of sports balls going into goals, hoops, nets, etc., kittens lounging in cat beds or eating food, and so much more! Students of all ages were successful with this craft—K-4^th, I’d say. 

I noticed the older they were, the more complicated they tried to make their animations and therefore the more thought needed to go into them (and then they sometimes needed to make some adjustments). But I tried to work with the students so that everyone went away with a successful Thaumatrope.

Lenticular Animation Tutorial

As I've said in previous posts, I am trying to use technology in my teaching a bit more. I've been working with the Educreations App for the iPad a bit and really love it (along with Screen Chomp). Both Apps just make explaining things so easy. 

Educreations is free in the App Store

So when I decided to make two lenticular animations for a display I am doing, I thought..."wait a minute, this would be great to explain how to make these!" I've posted about Lenticular Animation before, but it was way back when I first started blogging and my project was pretty complicated. I even had a student get super-frustrated with the whole technical aspect of the project as I had designed in. It had to be easier, and I found a way!

I attended an awesome conference session at the Integrated Arts Conference in Plymouth, NH held by Timm Judas and he explained how to make a Lenticular animation and his way was just....easier.

So here's how it works: Students need to create two images that are on the same size paper but VERY different (that way the transformation is the best). Cutting and gluing needs to be pretty precise, so this is best done with students in grade 5 or above, I think (unless you are working in small groups or one-on-one).

In the video I made, I show you how to make simple Lenticular Animations at home. I'm making two pieces for a display I'll be using at the PTA Math and Science fair I'm attending on Monday night. I'm Integrating art with Science and my Lenticular animations are "One Fish, Two Fish" and "Red Fish, Blue Fish."

Lenticular animation is fun and really has a great "WOW!" factor--even grown-ups are wondering how it's done! So watch my Educreations video and try it out--and please send me an email or post below letting me know how your Lenticular design came out--I love to see what people are creating!

ENJOY!

Dollar Store Animation Class: Thaumatropes

So you'd like to create a series of animation classes for your students, but don't have much $$? No problem! I taught a 3 week series of animation classes for middle school students this fall that was full of information and inspiration, and didn't cost too much.

On the left: a magical bunny who pops out of a magician's hat (both sides seen here).
On the right: The goldfish in the fishbowl (only one side shown).

The course was called: Animation, The Old-Fashoined Way--I wanted to start off showing students that they can create little movies from everyday items. I was able to show them all sorts of animation "machines" from the history of animation. We saw still and moving examples of each "machine" and then created our own.

I told the students that this course is mainly a workshop--lots of experimenting going on here! This was a bit different from my other art classes where they may come away with artwork for the fridge--many of the examples they made in animation class are meant to be held, spun, flipped, etc. and since I'm not telling them exactly what to animate (that wouldn't be fun!), they were going to learn-as-they-went, so they may make mistakes.

Class one, we watched a great video by MIT about the history of animation. This video has examples of many of the old-fashioned animation "machines" we were going to be creating!

http://video.mit.edu/watch/history-of-animation-3391/

First, we started off with the Thaumatrope--the easiest animation machine of all (I think).

What is a Thaumatrope?
The Thaumatrope is a great & quick way to illustrate to students the main magic about animation: persistence of vision. Students create two drawings and glue them back-to-back. As they spin the "machine" in their hands, both drawings will seem to appear at the same time.

History of the Thaumatrope:
The Thaumatrope is a simple toy that was used in the Victorian era (about 1824). Traditional examples use a string to spin the cards, but my example below uses a skewer, because I think that works better.

Examples of a Thaumatrope to check out:
The most common example of the Thaumatrope you'll see on the Internet is the goldfish in a fishbowl. I'm sure you can do better than that! But check these out for inspiration:

• Martha Stewart has two printable Thaumatropes: the bird in a cage and a fish in a fishbowl. http://www.marthastewart.com/957770/paper-movies-thaumatrope
• Jack & Beverly's Optical Toys also has a neat page on Thaumatropes with old-day's examples: http://brightbytes.com/collection/thaum.html

Make Your Own Thaumatrope!

Supplies Needed:

• One 4"x6" white index card
• Clear tape
• Pencil with eraser
• Glue Stick
• One wooden skewer (I've also used plastic drinking straws)
• Markers
• Colored pencils and/or crayons

Directions:

1. Fold the index card in half widthwise (hamburger or taco fold).

2. Lightly sketch 2 images (one on each side of the index card) using the pencil. Make sure that your drawings line up when you flip back and forth between them: I had students fold the index card and then hold the card up to the light in a sunny window so they could see both pencil drawings through the paper. Make adjustments as necessary.

3. Outline the finished pencil lines with marker and color the drawings with colored pencil to make them nice and bold. Animations work best if you do your best coloring.

4. Tape the skewer to the center of the inside of the folded index card. Glue the inside of the index card with glue stick and fold the card closed over the skewer to secure (refer to the photos in this post).

5. Roll the stick of the Thaumatrope back and forth in your hands and enjoy!

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Other posts in the "Dollar Store Animation Class" Series:

• Thaumatrope (you're here!)

• Phenakistoscope

• Zoetrope

• Flip books

• Stop Motion (Part 1)

• Stop Motion (Part 2)