Triple Threat… Culture, Creativity, and Technology

When you think of a traditional art class in elementary, what comes to mind? Pencil, paper, paint, pottery and maybe a few other ways to create. At Peterson Elementary, Mrs. Mock and Mrs. Ericsson’s 5th grade art classes are taking it up a notch. They are incorporating 21st Century Skills and school culture into Fine Arts Education.  

Making of the movie...ACTION!

After viewing a variety of stop motion animation videos, a technique that makes inanimate objects appear to be moving, the students were given the task to create their own. They were given the prompt “How We Do Things at Peterson” and were able interpret that idea however they saw fit, giving students ownership and choice. Once they were in their groups, students assigned roles and split up tasks.  Being able to develop, implement and communicate new ideas to others effectively is an important skill to learn at this age. Everyone had different ideas on what they thought the video should be about. Presley pointed out, “We had to work together to come up with a plan. We knew we wanted to make sure that we represented what we do here at Peterson, so something that is really big here is our assemblies.”

Once the plan was in place, the groups created comic strips of the story they wanted to tell in the stop motion video. Mrs. Mock and Mrs. Ericsson gave them all different types of materials to to choose from for the creation of the background scene and characters.

Now it was time for the making of the movie! Students took images of their characters, moved the objects frame by frame, and created an illusion of movement in the iMotion app on the iPad. For many of the students, it was their first trying stop motion animation, and they were surprised how easy it was to create. Some groups wanted to take their movie up a level and add sound. They decided to smash the app Shadow Puppet Edu to voice over their video. Sydney commented, “Adding the second app was fun, it made our video more exciting and we were able to tell our story better.”

Mrs. Mock and Mrs. Ericsson found a way for 21st Century Learners to explore creativity, find the value of the importance of school culture, and actively use technology in the Fine Arts classroom.