BCS elementary art classes introduce students to the wide-ranging styles of art, its history, and its enduring impact on society.
At Leicester Elementary School, Ms. Lissa Pedersen taught her fourth grade students how to create stop motion* movies – from backgrounds and character designs to image capture and software assembly. She challenged the entire fourth grade to build animations that illustrate the letters of the alphabet for kindergarteners. The kids added to their art repertoire while also strengthening their vocabulary, planning, technology, and collaboration skills.
“Students love to animate things,” Ms. Pedersen said. “It allows them to have a successful creative ‘in’ as they approach art and learning. In my classroom, we have used stop motion with all sorts of artistic mediums such as drawing, clay, and collage. I use stop motion animation in my elementary art curriculum to also connect with core learning from their classrooms.”
A grant from the Buncombe County Schools Foundation helped Ms. Pedersen pay for additional iPad stands so the stop motion teams could be smaller. Smaller teams allow every student to get involved in the project.
“I don’t use a lot of technology in this classroom, but when I do, I want them to see it as a tool, not as a form of entertainment,” she said. “It’s a way to make art, to get their creativity out into the world. Then it becomes active and engaging instead of passive.”
On Dec. 7, students laughed and exclaimed their excitement while working on creative backgrounds. One pair of students made a movie showing a wolf in wind and water to illustrate the letter “W.” Others experimented with different levels of complexity to see what could fit within their time constraints.
“I think it’s really fun and creative,” said fourth grader Lucy. “It’s fun, and I’m really happy that we get to do this, cause my dad’s an artist.”
“I like to make people laugh and be creative, so this is fun,” added Cyril, another student.
*Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments while photographs are taken. The photos are linked together to make an animation sequence. Stop motion animation has a long history in art and can be linked back to Eadweard Muybridge’s photographic explorations of movement from the 1800s. It is also still currently used in modern filmmaking.