2015 5th Grade Stop Motion Animation Shorts

Stop motion animation is a yearly favorite for 5th grade. This year's collection of 16 short films was posted on YouTube last week. 

I let students have a lot of freedom with this project. They split into four groups per class and are in charge of creating the entire film. They are responsible for brainstorming, writing, creating backgrounds/sets, creating characters, animating, video editing, and adding voices. It's a pretty extensive list of things to do and the project tends to drag out for a while. 

I'm thinking of changing it around quite a bit for next year. I love the creativity involved, but I don't love how long the project takes and the fact that some groups just don't work well together- especially for a longer amount of time. 

My 4th grade classes didn't wind up having time for flip books this year. Right now, I'm looking at probably combining flip books with the stop motion project. I'm going to still use groups, but the groups will create a longer traditional style animation instead of stop motion. I'm still kicking around theme ideas, but I'm really excited to try something new. Until then, enjoy the video from this year. It's hosted on YouTube, so it may not work on school computers for some of you. 

Download my lesson plan here!