Stop Motion Animation and Musical Math
Stop motion animation is absolutely brilliant for children. It uses so many different skill sets, enables meaningful learning, and there is an enormous payoff when you watch everything magically come alive. Stop motion animation is extremely motivating, not to mention incredibly satisfying; but why should all the other subject areas have all the fun with animation?
Using stop motion in my elementary music classroom was easy, required minimal preparation, and engaged my students the entire class. Keep reading to discover a cool example and time-saving tips to combine musical concepts and stop motion animation in the review of the note-value math.
What is Stop Motion Animation?
Stop motion animation in simplest form, is a film making technique that makes objects appear to move on their own. An object is placed in front of a camera and a photo is snapped, then the object is moved ever so slightly and another photo is snapped, frame by frame, over and over and over! The process is as simple as: move the object, get hands off the stage, take a picture, repeat several hundred times.
Stop motion animation is everywhere — in commercials, music videos, television shows and feature films—even if we don’t realize it. Here are a few famous or interesting examples:Do you remember seeing the 1933 Empire State Building scene from “King Kong?” “Wallace and Gromit” or watching “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?”
What about these ads on Instagram?
Here are a few kid-friendly types of stop motion:
Clay Animation
Clay animation uses plasticine or play-doh to build characters and objects.
Here is a video showing how it’s done in a studio.
Lego Animation
Lego animation uses Lego blocks to build and animate characters. Here is an example of a music video made using Lego and stop motion, a perfect combination of musical concepts and stop motion animation.
Disturbing the Peace by the Cranberry Merchants
Object Animation
Object animation uses toys, dolls, action figures, or anything around the room or outside to tell a story. This particular example looks very doable for our students.
Pixelation
Pixilation uses people and their surroundings to animate one frame at a time. There are so many interesting examples like this one and I can’t wait to try this technique with a group of my students.
Paper Cutout Animation
Paper cutout animation uses objects cut out of paper. This would be a great way to animate a musical story or bring a track created in Garageband to life visually. Peter and the Wolf would be a great starting point with Paper Cutout Animation. Watch this example illustrating Bruno Mars’ song, “Count On Me.” Our students could use this technique to bring songs to life.
Here is the ultimate musical application by Eleanor Stewart. How amazing!!
Why is stop motion so great for kids?
Skills, skills skills!
At a very minimum, claymation / stop motion teaches patience, attention to detail, photography and communication skills. Creating a film is a lot of hard work, but as Mary Poppins says, “In every job that must be done, there is a element of fun!” Tricia Fuglestad, an A-MAZING art teacher who inspires her troves of followers to try new things, created these uber-cool badges for her students to wear to identify their role. Tricia has a masterful way of making what seems complex easy to reproduce. In my animation unit, I used the roles that Tricia created and the students loved it! Read more about it here.
Meaningful Learning
Reviewing musical concepts with stop motion animation is a meaningful way for students to become more involved in what they are learning. It gives the opportunity to be creative, which ultimately helps boost student engagement and understanding of material. This is my third year teaching stop motion animation and I find it to be a great mid-year project to reboot the brain cells with total engagement. I like the “shock and awe” effect the first week back in January.
Accessible for all
Using musical concepts and stop motion animation is perfect for enabling every student to shine and have a creative voice. There is something for all ages and abilities to do when working together. Since this is a new activity, everyone is learning together. I have been amazed at how often my students assumed different roles than I would have expected had I assigned the roles myself.
Problem-Solving
Working together, problem-solving and creative thinking magically combined to bring out the best of each student in this engaging project. In the example below, students wanted to have the pieces “fly” onto the stage so they had to borrow dental floss from another teacher and struggle to make it work. Another group wanted their pieces to parade on and off the stage, another group worked out how to make all of the pieces bow at the end and disappear. You’ll be amazed at the creativity found in each video.
How to prepare students
I have used stop motion animation only as a review of music concepts. It’s the perfect mid-year review activity because of all the front-loading that has already been done during the first half of the year. In other words, before I began this activity, my students had an understanding of basic note values and musical fractions at least to the 16th notes. If mistakes are made, there is always an option to undo, delete, insert or re-do! Tip: for authentic engagement, don’t start this project unless you have taught the concepts first.
Stop Motion and Musical Math
The claymation or play-doh animation is definitely a “just a little more” leveled-up example of technology integration. Here is a look inside the music room during this activity. Just look at the engagement levels everywhere.
How to prepare supplies
Set the stage
As you see in the video, I used boxes covered in colored paper. The color is only so the videos won’t all look the same. I used leftover covid plexiglas sheets for the stage; it prevented the play-doh from sticking to the paper. Laminated paper would also work. Because there were so many groups of children in a small space, having the enclosed pizza box stage was important for the final result.
FREE Stop Motion apps and iPad
There are several stop motion apps available, but for this project, I used Stop Motion Studio because it is free, easy to use, and forgiving.
Stop Motion Studio is an award-winning app that can be used to make a film like Wallace and Gromit. Simple to use, the free version is powerful enough for student creation, and it supports Mac, Windows, and Android operating systems. The project can be exported as a movie, animated GIF, Images, Flipbook, or project. My students were able to create and edit their own animation with minimal explanation. Intuitively, students exported the projects as a movie to their camera roll and then uploaded the video to their Seesaw journal.
Play-doh, Knives, Plastic Tubs
I purchased enough 3oz. tubs of play-doh to have one per group and extra on hand if needed. Each station had several plastic knives for clean cuts. As you will see in some of the videos, color matters. Dark brown looks like poop according to a few parents who commented in Seesaw. And skin color is also questionable as you will see in another the video. I suggest pulling out those two colors! By the end of two weeks, the doh definitely needed to be refreshed for some groups. Tip: transfer the doh to plastic tubs so it won’t dry out as easily. The lids are difficult for little hands to get off and on.
Note Value Manipulatives
At first, I had the students make the note value signs. That took F.O.R.E.V.E.R. and looked tacky. So I used what I already had on hand and attached bent pipe cleaners to real-time laminated note value pieces – so much better and the focus was turned to animating rather than making pieces of paper. The color-coding was not intentional; it’s just what I had on hand. Here is a PDF if you would like to download and print it out on cardstock for yourself. One copy of the PDF makes ten (10) sets of rhythm pieces. Attach each piece to a bent pipe cleaner or popsicle stick. Put the set in a zip bag.
Download this PDF
Rhythm-Grid-for-Stop-Motion-Math
iPad Stands and Lights
The camera must remain stationary for stop motion. Gaffer tape is the best thing for securing the base to the table to prevent movement. Look at the various images below to find ideas for stands that are not expensive to make. Additionally, try to film in a well-lit room for best results.
Simple steps for success
The First Class
Once my music room was set up, students entered with enormous smiles. With just a few words, I jumped right to a stop motion video like the ones linked earlier in the post. Some students in my school had already tried the app, some have made Lego animation before and all wanted a go at making the music video. I gathered the students around me and demonstrated how to move an object, clear hands, snap a photo and repeat. Letting students do the actual moving of the objects was helpful to demonstrate the look of small moves vs large moves. It took about 20ish minutes to introduce, show an example, demonstrate, set expectations with badges and roles, and get everyone set up. The remainder of the 50 minute class students created a first run-through video. Checking in on each team was essential to troubleshoot, re-direct, encourage, and assist each team.
Before leaving, each team shared their animation with another team. The room was abuzz with oohs and ahhs about how many frames were taken and the creative ways objects were moved to tell a story. Their minds were blown in the best kind of way!
The Second Class and Challenge
The second class started with a review and sharing of ideas and tips. As a “just a little more” challenge, I demonstrated the onion skin feature in the app and sent them on their way. Here is a :37 sec video demonstrating the Onion Skin feature.
Here are a few teasers:
Cherie Herring
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