I often struggle with developing meaningful projects that grade one students can do independently. Often times it is a challenge for these young students to develop a deep understanding of the technology concepts involved. My current integrated project overcomes these barriers and introduces them to the technology design cycle as well!

Grade 1 students at Mont’Kiara International School will be developing an animated story about a pond animal they are researching as part of their current unit. Working in pairs, students will write a realistic fiction story to animate including many facts about their animal.

Here is a quick outline the activities involved, including some great FREE resources:

1. Introduce the concept of animation using the brainpop video. Students create their first animation using Flipbook in about 5 minutes. Talk about instant gratification!
2. Elaborate on the concept of animation by creating a stop motion video together with the children. Here is one we created of some students setting up their desktop pond.
3. As the activities described above are occurring, students will also be engaged in the technology design cycle steps of investigate, plan and design. They will create a story planner and storyboard their animation. Their ‘set’ and characters will be drawn using KidPix which provides the option of printing their ‘set’ poster size.
4. Finally, the students will be ready to create their animation. We will use SAM Animation, the fantastic FREE tool developed by Tufts University’s Center for Engineering Outreach. We will use the time lapse feature to make the process a breeze for these first graders
5. Our animations will be posted in the gallery at the site and we will evaluate our work.

Look for our animated stories soon! Have you created animations with your students?
Share your story and tools…