A Very Special Visitor (Monday!)…How Lucky Are We?!?!

Today, we were so fortunate to have another parent visitor come in and teach us something new.  Chandra spent an hour with us teaching us all about stop motion animation.  We were involved in every step along the way…creating our backdrop (drawing the setting for our film), creating characters (2 monsters made of playdoh), creating our opening credits, and filming the actual movie.  We worked in groups of 3 or 4.  

Below is an overview that Chandra provided to explain her session with us today.  Please click on the link below to see the finished masterpieces.  She's right, they are hilarious and so much fun to watch!

Wee Creative Co.’s stop motion workshop:

In the workshop, we introduce the concept of stop motion using iPads. Over the course of the one hour session, students learn video animation skills and complete group work.

During the creative process, our focus is on fostering the imagination, collaborating and cooperating with peers using digital technology.

Stop motion (also known as stop frame) is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object or persona appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence. (Wikipedia definition: stop motion)

The Dancing Monsters project allows students to practice character movement; manipulating their playdoh monsters in small increments in between capturing photos so the monsters appear to be “dancing”.  The results are hilarious and unique. In addition to the video making, students begin the project by colouring a backdrop and adding a title. 

To view the results: 

https://vimeo.com/weecreativeco/videos

Workshop series prepared by Wee Creative Co.

First step, draw the backdrop...

Next, create your monsters….

googley eyes are extremely important!

start filming!

monsters are moved in tiny increments to make them appear to be moving in the final movie

Here are the backdrops that the groups created today.  Such creativity and collaboration!  

Finally, we got to sit together and watch the finished films.  Giggles and more giggles!

This was such an amazing experience for all of us (me included!)  It is astounding to think that in the span of 1 hour, 20 5 and 6 year olds were able to work together to create 6 creative and imaginative short films using stop motion animation.  Chandra, we would like to express how thankful we are that you came in and taught us so many things today!

A Very Special Visitor (Friday)

 Technology is great when it works.  When it doesn't….not so great.  But with some perseverance, I was able to get these photos uploaded.  And it's a good thing, because I'm so excited to share our visit with one of our student's moms from last Friday.

Carol came in and spent an hour with us telling us all about her job as a marine structural engineer.  She showed us a picture of the Vancouver harbor and we talked about all the things we saw in the picture.  She pointed out some of the projects that she has been involved in (extending Canada Place and planning for the building of the new Convention Centre!)

We all got to participate in a "float/sink" experiment.  Each student was given an object and was asked to predict whether the object would float or sink in water.  Then each student was able to test his/her prediction.  Here are photos of each of us taking our turn….

Then Carol taught us all about Scuba diving and brought in all of her gear to show us how it all works. We learned about the air tank.

and the buoyancy compensation devise

and how the mouth piece works

we learned about the gauges 

we learned how to release the air

we saw what equipment we need for the other parts of our bodies….gloves and a hood

mask and snorkle

fins

and the rest of the suit

Carol dressed a student up in her suit (he has a little more growing to do!)

We had such  great time learning all about the ocean and ways to explore it.  We also learned all about a job that we may not have known much about before (and by "we" I mean "me"!)  It was all so interesting!  We'd like to send a HUGE thank you to Carol for sharing her expertise with us.