Kids Crafts: Animation For Kids

Welcome back to Kids Get Crafty! Bringing you “Animation for Kids” – a perfect “craft” for kids, tweens and teens. I am VERY excited about today’s craft, mainly because, the kids were SOOO excited. They loved every minute of it and it was a great great great afternoon spent. Actually… it was several afternoon’s spent at both Red Ted HQ and the neighbour’s house. From our 3yrs old to my neighbour’s 9yrs old, to my husband and I – we all loved it!

This is most definitely an activity which is all about the process and less about the result… though of course we love our results! And this a really good activity to get those “reluctant non crafters” to have a go and have some fun – in order to be creative you don’t have to stick to the “traditional mediums”. With digital technology, photography and now animation are easily accessible to our youngest readers. And does your child say playdough is for babies? Give them animation and plasticine and a whole new activity begins!

So… what made us want to have a go? A few weeks ago my lovely neighbour came back from a festival weekend away and showed me this:

Her 9 year old son had made these plasticine owls. I thought they were FABULOUS. Then she told me, that at the festival they had also made a movie with it. I was balled over. The children were so enthusiastic! How many 9 year olds do you get telling you that plasticine is great? Most say that that is something for babies. No more! Plasticine is the new craft for bigger kids.. especially if you then go and animate with them.

And here is what his younger brother made:

(a crab and a scorpion)

I am SO PROUD of both boys! And they are not even mine!

By coincidence Hue Animation contacted me and asked me whether we would be interested in their animation package. Absolutely! And a few days later we received our complimentary green camera and software. Wow. What fun indeed.

Red Ted isn’t really old enough to work with plasticine – or not in a way that would be useful for animation. So we grabbed some favourite toys and crafts (our Gumnut Octopuses) and made these:

• Love Octopuses – was my first “trial of the camera” – not bad for a first go?
• The Train – was Red Ted’s first go – you see the odd hand!
• The Tunnel – was Red Ted’s and daddy’s go.
• Cheeky – another go at the train and the octopus. Look, no hands!

Want more examples of Kids’ animations? Check out the Zu3D gallery. I could spend hours Ooohing and Aaahing! Primary school children made many of the entries!

Red Ted totally got it and adored it. I admit that the first video was slightly “stressful” – how do you explain to a 3yrs old “not to touch or lean into the picture”. But when he saw the result he totally understood and was very good at keeping his hands away when the next shot was being snapped. He had lots of fabulous ideas for more videos. We just had to help him moderate it into something “realistic” – i.e. we had a small ish space and it is difficult to have things flying through the air!

I think for our next attempt we will create a “proper stage” – make it a real craft extravaganza! In the meantime, some top tips:

1) Keep it simple to begin with

2) Sellotape things down (e.g. our tunnel)

3) Use clever things like bluetak or these great clear Scotch Restickable Tabs if you want to make things walk up the side of things (we only thought of this AFTER we had our hands on show!).

I will not explain how to use the software – as we are only “just learning the ropes” ourselves – and I could write an essay on tips and tricks. However, I am not the most techie person and I was able to make a basic video with Red Ted within minutes. Combining them took my a tiny bit longer, but again, it was pretty intuitive and not rocket science. I think it is the software combine with the funky camera that makes this a really fun activity (and possibly gift?). I have made mini videos before, painstakingly taking photo by photo and adding these to a movie maker programme. It was a horrendous tideous affair, whilst this was quick, fun, easy and terribly rewarding!

Hue Animation rocks! And I recommend it to everyone!!! I reckon this would make a FABULOUS Christmas Day activity. And we are going to make it a tradition in our house to make a Christmas movie a year (watch this space). And I know that in now time my kids will be expert at this and know how to use the software much better than I ever will!

 

This is only a sponsored post in as much as that Hue Animations gave us the camera and software to use. However, I was keen to write a post about this already and I was not obliged to share our thoughts with you. All thoughts and words are mine.