An Interesting Way to Teach.

Today I came across a fantastic visual literacy website; The Literacy Shed, that offers animation that can be used within educational planning. In their Shed Full of Animations there is a fantastic array of animations to choose from to incorporate into lesson planning.

This animation; BROKEN: Rock, Paper, Scissors offers a wonderful insight for children into what it would be like if Rock, Paper and Scissors from the popular game, ever met.  The animation itself creates an awe inspiring atmosphere without words with the ambiance created through the fabulous 3D animation and atmospheric music.


 

The story line is gripping, a little scary and extremely moving which, in my opinion, will entice the viewers attention and create Identification, empathy towards the characters thus allowing the educator to embed many of the aspects of the curriculum such as P,S,E, Literacy, Creativity, Communication, Thinking Skills and ESDGC into this creative lesson.

 

The Literacy Shed offer these ideas into meaningful and thematic lesson planning for this particular animation which will cover most learning objectives in Key Stage 2 however could be adapted to Year 1 and 2 in the Foundation Phase, and supports outcomes required by the Literacy and Numeracy Framework.
 

Teaching Ideas

• Write character profiles for the 3 main characters.
• Compare and contrast the character traits.
• Write a description of paper from the point of view of Rock.
• Think about the game and how Rock could defeat scissors.
• Create a wanted poster for Scissors.
• Create models of each character out of suitable materials, e.g. origami for paper and clay for rock.
• Create setting descriptions for each character's home.
• Write the story from the point of view of each character.
• Write the dialogue between Rock and Paper when he tried to persuade her to come with him.
• Add tension to the narrative for the chase and battle scenes.
• Focus on story endings, starting when Paper wakes up. 
• Write 'Origins' stories for each of them, where have they come from? How where they created?

This web site really is a fantastic resource and I am glad that I found it.  Planning creative interesting lessons for children that will engross and interest the children is a key requirement for todays learners so they believe that learning is fun and is also invaluable to the practitioner to combine many curriculum requirements into one lesson. 

Watching animation to deliver a lesson however comes with many angles of learning and as Ploetzner and Schlag (2013) explain learning strategies must be developed for the learner to internalise and draw meaning from the animation.

A Box, A Lamp and a Rainy day.

Watching animations are a pleasure to many children and adults alike but, how about making one?  If we reflect on the process of making an animation it is clear that many different skills are needed, therefore skills that can be learnt and developed within a space for learning.  Communication, creativity, fine motor skills, higher function thinking skills and patience to name a few. 

Today, I made a Thaumatrope.  I used a simple technique which still caused me a little difficulty.

 

After one failed attempt I managed to make one that worked. Reflecting on the task made me realise that even though my thaumatrope was primitive, there was a vast thought process and deep problem solving skills that had to be made.

 

By spinning the pencil quickly back and forth the fish appears within the fishbowl. 

We then were introduced to more complicated forms of  cameraless animation.  My group and I were assigned the task of building of a working magic lantern, an early representation of a projector and invented circa 1650; it's earliest recorded users being Christiaan Huygens and Athanasius Kircher.  We used the designs from The Historians Toybox which informs about all styles of vintage cameraless animation.

 

 

Our animation was of lightening striking on a rainy day, however it did not work out as well as expected.  On reflection our slides were too far apart allowing our brains to understand and compute a gap between each one.  We also found that we had to place the magic lantern close to the wall to see a reflection after having to change from colour to black as colour did not show up at all.

 

Nonetheless, even though there were flaws in our animation, the design of the box worked really well.  As a group, within our own learning space, we communicated, problem solved, researched and took in instructions, followed instruction and built a magic lantern from a box, a lamp and a rainy day.