Stop Motion Studio App

Today in 4th grade art we had a total blast using the iPads to create short stop motion animations. After reviewing many stop motion apps I settled on Stop Motion Studio, it's extremely easy to use, and it also allows you to add sound recordings. This lesson just took one 50min class period to create. The students broke off into partners and I took up the extra iPads. One person took the photos while the other person moved the objects. You could definitely expand upon this idea though through having the kids write scripts, plan out their videos, and use different materials like play dough, or plastic figures as objects. For our videos, we just used what was quick at hand, art supplies. Markers, scissors, glue bottles were the stars of the show. At the end of creating the videos, I had the students e-mail me their videos, and also e-mail their partner the video as well. Watch the short clips and enjoy!

Whoa tech art ideas overload

I'm sitting in an art inservice and I feel like whoa. This Art teacher is light years ahead of me in rolling out technology in her classroom.

1st great idea that I'd like to do is that at the end of the year she had her 5th grade students use any art app on the ipad and has them create their own original artwork. They can do photography, sketching, make a video, whatever. Then they take the images and put them on Animoto to create their own video and e-mail it to her. I'd LOVE to do this!!!

However in thinking about it, I automatically started thinking about problems. As teachers we want to work out all the kinks beforehand. So my first question was how did you get the kids to put the apps on their iPads, don't the parents have the passwords. Answer yes, the parents do have the passwords but she along with her specials team, sent home a letter telling the parents all the apps that they wanted downloaded, so art, music, pe, drama apps. Which is a great idea.

Now for me, this seems daunting, however I think I could manage to borrow 6 school iPads for my 6 classroom tables and just download the apps myself. I think for my first year it would be easier for a table to make an original group artwork and put it on animoto and then e-mail it to me.

Next great idea, have the students bring their ipads to class to take pictures of their artwork, download it to their google drive and start a digital portfolio.

Great new apps for me at least: SketchBookX(really great advanced sketching tool) Doodle Dandy and Pic Collage. I think PicCollage would be great for classroom teachers too.

-Keep on teaching those awesome artistes!

The Beginning of IPADS in Art!

I'm really excited about this. I finally received an IPAD! Haha, just one, plus it's a loaner but I don't care I'm super excited about it! It's been my goal for the last several years to incorporate more technology into my art curriculum, and I know that this is really going to be the jumping off point for me to broaden what I already do. 

My goal for having the ipad in the classroom is to allow the students to use it once they are finished with their work, to take pictures of their artwork and to use photo editing apps to enhance their images. I'd also like for them to play around with video animation apps to familiarize themselves with that. So as you can see I created an IPAD station. At the station is a list of rules, like don't take pictures of someone without asking permission, ect. I also have my e-mail address listed for the kids(where you see the crown.) I'd like for them to send me their photos and take the time to sometimes post their artwork or video creations here.

What I LOVE about photo editing apps is teaching words like Contrast, saturation, crop, enhance, focus, ect. GREAT art words that are so easily taught through photo editing.

Another thing that I'd like to do with the IPADS once I receive more or get more loaners is to use them to expand upon my claymation/stop motion animation lesson that I do every year. If you'd like to see some of the videos we've made using regular cameras and windows movie maker then the videos are in my Youtube section on the right hand side of the page. A great APP that I'm really looking forward to using is Stop Motion Studio. It's very easy to use. Today a student and I put together a video in less than five minutes and we even added our voices to it, laughing the whole time. Putting together that short video was so much EASIER than how I've had to do it in the past where I have to gather all the photos and edit them together myself. This way the kids will have free reign over editing.

So there you have it, my hopes, dreams, and plans for technology in the classroom. Hopefully in a year to a few years I'll be like an iPad art teacher master!

~Keep teaching those Awesome Artistes!

Dia De Los Muertos/Day of the Dead Art!

This is a Day of the Dead project that I really enjoy doing for my 2nd graders. It's one of those lessons where they all come out looking good and the kids feel successful. Plus they get to learn about a Mexican holiday and their art style.

 

For this project we use transparency sheets, I have a ton of them that were no longer being used by our front office. I have two different skull templates that I drew up and laminated. If you had more time though you could have the kids draw their own skull. I then have the kids place the transparency sheet over the skull and trace it in black sharpie. Once they're finished they color it in colored sharpie.We then crumple up the foil slightly and put it behind the skull. After this step have the studentes make a frame for it. I've done this out of a paper plate for a circular frame or a whole 12x18 sheet of construction paper.

Now before I do this lesson I make sure to talk about holidays, holidays that we celebrate and holidays that we don't. We make a list of each. Then I ask the kids about the holidays we celebrate and if they think that they're celebrated in other countries just the same. We then read this book http://www.amazon.com/Dia-Muertos-Rookie-Read-About-Holidays/dp/051627354X/ref=sr_1_48?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380135921&sr=1-48&keywords=day+of+the+dead

It's a pretty easy read but what I like about it is that it's straight forward and gives real life pictures of the celebration. While we read the book we talk about similarities and differences. For example Yellow is the color used often for Day of the Dead, we talk about colors that are used during Valentines day, Christmas, Ect. I feel like this sets the climate for the project. Otherwise, just setting it in front of the kids, all they see is a skull and a skull is symbol that means different things in our culture than it does for Day of the Dead.

Any questions about the project ask away!

-Keep being an Awesome Artiste!