7 Tips for Creating Stop Motion Animation with Kids

Do you have a little engineer or tinkerer in your home? Does your child love to create and invent? If this sounds like you kiddo, you are not alone. We are always cooking up something creative in our home. Our latest adventures include creating Stop Motion Animation with Kids. Along the way, we have learned a few tips that we want to pass on to you and your family so you too, can create a Stop Motion Animation Film with your kids.

This post was sponsored by SanDisk, but all opinions and ideas are my own.

7 Tips to Creating Successful Stop Motion Animation with Kids

Tip 1: Start with the Right Equipment

Having the right equipment doesn’t have to be hard or even elaborate. For us, we used our Ipad, our favorite Stop Motion Animation App, and a station for filming. It wasn’t until AFTER we worked on our first round of animation, that we realized that we quickly ran out of space on the Ipad and needed more space. That’s why I love the SanDisk iXpand™ Flash Drive for the Ipad. I will go into how we used it a little more, but it was a life changer when it came to storage on our Ipad. Before setting up your station, be sure to download the Stop Motion app and the SanDisk iXpand™ app so your kids are ready to go!

Tip 2: Set Up a Stop-Animation Station

Find a spot in your home that can be undisturbed. You want to plan for leaving it up for a few days, so it needs to be out of the way where other children won’t disturb the setting. This will also allow your child to focus on the animation process without distractions. For our stop animation station, we used a White Foam Tri-Fold Presentation Board as walls for our station and a White Foam Board as a base. Next, I set the Ipad up in a stand, so that it could be hands-free for the kids. Finally, I left a small basket of blocks for the kids to get started with. I started with just blocks, but of course the children quickly added their own additions.

Tip 3: Provide Time for Exploration

You might be tempted to just jump right in and have your kids get started making amazing stop animation. The problem with this can be that if you are using this to create “stories” or “projects” you might not get a film that has a purpose. Children need time to explore and investigate the Ipad, the manipulatives and the app before expecting them to create a full length film with a purpose.

Tip 4: Model and provide Examples

After letting the kids explore for quite some time and allowing them to create their own stop animation films you can expand their skills with a this simple step. At this point, you will probably start to notice your Ipad getting full of video, which makes now a great time to transfer your videos to your SanDisk iXpand™ Flash Drive. Often times, I found that my children moved pieces in large movements and didn’t take enough pictures. After making my own stop animation film (by the way, I highly suggest you doing this because you might fall in love with it) I am no expert, so that’s why I turned to some of our favorites. Here are a few in a playlist you can show your kids too:

Tip 5: Create a Story Board

Now that you have the perfect station, you have explored how to use all of the equipment, and you have plenty of space on your Ipad, you are ready to create an amazing Stop Animation Film that will make your friends swoon. I found that one way to create a great Stop Animation film is to preplan our stories out with a story board. We made this simple story board that you can download to make your film making even easier for you. Print your own Stop Motion Animation StoryBoard Printable here.

Tip 6: More is Better

We learned the hard way that more is better! More Pictures! More! More! More! Seriously, the more pictures you take showing slight movements of your toys and materials, the smoother your film will be. The Stop Motion app allows you to speed up and slow down the images, and the more pictures taken, the easier it is to create the look you are going for. Since you are taking more pictures, I highly suggest having more space on your Ipad. That’s where the SanDisk iXpand™ flash drive comes in super handy! Seriously, where has this thing been all my life?

Tip 7: Backup Often

Nothing could be worse than creating an amazing Stop Animation film only to have the app stop working on you or your hard drive fill up. We learned this the hard way and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Oh no! This happened when we tried to download it!!! Once we got the SanDisk iXpand™ flash drive, me made it a habit to backup our work often while we were working on our project. The possibilities are endless for where you kids can take stop animation and we hope these tips help you and your kids have fun creating awesome videos. Here is our latest film! We hope you enjoy!

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