Lights! Camera! Action! Help Bring Students' Stories to Life

My Students

"What people like about stop-motion animation is that it's real. It's like a magic trick, taking real things, real sets, and making them come to life with movement."-Joe Clokey. Imagine having stories you write come to life with this amazing art medium...it will likely inspire you to write more!

We are a Title I public elementary school in a large urban community in Missouri where many of our families are English language learners.

In the 2015-2016 school year, I have a split class of Kindergarten and first grade boys. Our school is comprised of gender-specific classrooms to maximize gender based learning and teaching strategies. One of the most prominent themes in teaching strategies for boys is to get them up and moving while interacting with lessons and curriculum. My students are a very active group and work best when involved in learning activities that includes hands-on activities. They have brilliant stories to tell, stemming from their incredibly vivid imaginations, but often struggle with committing those story ideas to paper, as beginning (and often struggling) writers.

My Project

By supporting this project, you will be empowering students through art to write and produce creative stories which they may animate through the medium of stop-motion animation. My students have already established a love for building with Lego building blocks during free choice/indoor recess times. I want to build on that passion they have developed for working with Lego into an extension for creative writing by helping them animate their stories, whether they be oral or written. I believe that if we begin with animating shorter oral stories, students will be encouraged and empowered to build their stories in written expression format to include more details. It takes a cohesive production team to successfully create a movie, so these projects will empower my students through art to also strengthen their collaboration and teamwork skills. Having a digital camera dedicated to our class will allow us to take pictures at any time with which my students may write stories about or journal.

The opportunities to empower students through art via stop-motion animation and photography are countless and the anticipated impact immeasurable, not only for my class this year but for future classes for years to come.

Help me bring all my students to higher levels of expression through these amazing art formats. The materials requested will increase interest and excitement in many areas of classroom learning for my young learners and provide that hands-on activity they need. Thank you!