First Claymations...

While making a good high quality and competition worthy claymation very intricate, time consuming, and difficult, making a simple claymation that demonstrates a basic concept is surprisingly easy and something the students absolutely adore. Here is a simple claymation that one group made last week to demonstrate expanded form.

Materials You Will Need:

1. Cheap Modeling Clay (It never dries out. The kids figures from last year are still perfectly mailable. We did learn something the hard way though. Don't store them on the windowsill. They won't dry out, but they can melt!) I buy my clay at US Toy- 24 sticks for $1.99. I put 12 sticks on a table and that is all they can use- It is a great lesson. They have to work together and compromise for the colors they all want. It has somehow always worked out without much trouble.
2. Digital Still Camera
3. Tripod (You need to be able to keep the camera still- tripod is best, but setting it on a book or table will also work.)
4. It is good to put up some sort of background, in this case they used two file folders. My husband says it is too cheap. I say it is really EASY.
5. Screen Capture Program
6. Microphone (they can use the one on your laptop)
   

We took 15 minutes before lunch one day to create their characters. They will use these same characters for several claymations. I made one claymation with a few volunteers as the class watched, then they were on their own after that.

The most important rule to stress it to NEVER pick up the figures, only move them slightly. They will break this rule often, and when they see how it totally messes up their scene, they usually stop. No matter how much they think they are putting the character back down in the same place, they aren't.

The project above was one of their math centers for the week. They complete the center in groups of 4-5 students and had 25 minutes to decide on a number and take all the pictures. The next day I took 15 minutes and taught each group how to turn the pictures into a movie.

It's pretty simple.

1. Open the picture folders and make sure you delete any mistake pictures. (Like ones with hands in them)

2. Select view as slide show and hit the pause button.

3. Open Camtasia and select the area you want to capture. (If you don't have Camtasia, JING is a great free alternative that has received very positive reviews.)

4. Hit record and Camtasia will capture your screen and your voice as you click the mouse or the right arrow button to flip through the pictures. (It's the digital version of a flip book)

5. If you have Camtasia, you can then add titles and transitions.

Here is another example of the finished project:

They will get faster and faster at the process. This week a couple of groups made another claymation showing how to order numbers. They were able to take the pictures and almost finish editing it in the 25 minutes. By the third time, my goal is to have the students be able to shoot and complete editing in the 25 minutes. Once they start to understand the basics of claymation through these academic tasks, they can move on to using it as a storytelling task, with characters, plot, and more advanced movement. These take much more time, but use the basic skills they learned in the short versions. Here is a sample of one from the end of last year....

You can also use Power Point to create a slide show of the images, but it requires inserting each picture into a slide. Using JING or Camtasia to capture the "view as slide show" function is much faster, and you can very easily add their voices.

This isn't always a smooth process. It requires a lot of collaboration, problem solving, and patience with each other. Don't give up when the first time you try it they are fighting over who gets to take the picture and a clay figure gets stuck to the bottom of another kid's shoe (Or your shoe-I'll never forget the look on the little girl's face when we found Lewis attached to the bottom of my Nikes). Even when they are proficient at the process, they will still have struggles to over come. Give them some room to work it out, and if they can't handle it, shut it down temporarily and allow them to try again another time. One group will be able to do it, and when the class sees their finished project, they will be eager to try and work together to get theirs done too. If it is just one person causing the trouble, simply remove them and give them an alternative assignment for that day. Chances are very high they will do better the next day- or the day after. This activity is as much about learning planning, problem solving, and cooperation skills as it is about demonstrating the academic concepts they are working on.