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A conversation between two children in the garden at Little Barn Owls Nursery in Horsham, West Sussex sparked a year-long animation project with the nursery’s three- and four-year-olds.
Artie (three years, ten months) commented to his friend, ‘I’m going to fly into that tree, Felix, and when I’m in the tree I’ll turn into a lizard, then a snake, a bird, then a bat, a shoe, a table and then back to me again when I get to the ground.’
The nursery’s resident atelierista Dillon Howling thought it was an excellent starting point for exploring the possibilities of transformation though animation. ‘Every project starts from a contribution from a child, usually something interesting that they’ve said or done, something that gives new possibilities to a learning context, ripe and ready to be explored,’ he explains.
So, he discussed Artie’s conversation with a group of children and showed them how, through simple animation, line drawings can fluidly move and change from one object to another, much like Artie had described.
Dillon thought the children may want to act out or create transformation stories of their own, but they were most captivated by seeing the line drawings moving. ‘The children were deeply curious how a simple drawing could move on screen and wanted to explore this further so I brought in flip books and together we researched the basic concept of animation,’ he says.
The children experimented with the flip books and moved on to drawing images and scanning them onto the computer in order to transform their own pictures into animation. The project then took a different direction when Dillon introduced the children to stop-motion photography. They were keen to try using a camera to make their own animations in this way. Weeks of practice of using the camera and taking photographs of still objects before gradually moving them ensued.
The children worked in groups to tackle the process and articulated their learning to their friends. Sammy (three years, seven months) carefully explained, ‘You take a photo, then move it, take a photo, then move it, take a photo, then move it…’
Children made a range of short animations, such as one of a sheep, and started to develop explorations by adding new characters and plot changes. They were excited as they worked together to move objects, hide from the camera as a photo was taken and giggle as they returned to move it again.
During the process Dillon encouraged the children to review their work frequently and asked the children to consider any problems or failings that they could improve. Children started to critique their own work, with Henry (four years) exclaiming, ‘Doh, Sammy’s hand was in it’, and Theo (three years, six months) saying, ‘I can see your T-shirt.’ Dillon says there was a ‘leap of thinking’ as children began to assess whether each photograph worked in the film as a whole.
SKILLS AND PROPS
As the children’s enthusiasm and skills developed, they began to introduce other objects in their animations, such as experimenting with different props, backgrounds and techniques, including hoisting up objects using fishing wire. They used a wide range of media in their films from small-world characters to objects created from junk modelling.
One child engaged another into helping her to photograph a car as it actually ‘drove’ over the camera. ‘Their narratives became rapidly more sophisticated, interesting and dynamic,’ observes Dillon.
Death became a recurring theme with various animals meeting their fate from burning lava. Harry (four years, one month) explained his plot as, ‘The dinosaur gets attacked by a snake and then another dinosaur and a zebra wear the snake and go for a walk.’
Gwen (four years, one month) commented, ‘I’ve got an interesting idea. We could make an animation of me.’ This provoked many of the children to also put themselves in their animations. The investigations also expanded as the children tried taking the camera off the tripod and moving it around. They realised they could tell their stories from multiple points of view by altering and modifying the camera angle and could verbalise what they were doing, such as using a low angle. Lottie (three years, 11 months) exclaimed, ‘If you put the camera really close, it looks really big!’
STORYBOARDING
After around three months of experimenting, the children had made hundreds of films and Dillon began to reflect on how to build on the children’s interest. He showed them how to develop their animations by drawing their own storyboards. They discussed what they had learnt about how the props and sets can make a difference.
Dillon proposed that the children devise storyboards with the aim of selecting a few for groups to work on together and create animations to show at a cinema. The children were all very keen on the idea and discussed and chose which ones they would focus on. ‘I want the dinosaur one because it’s funny,’ said Sammy. Whereas Harry wanted to choose Henry’s, ‘He blasts off faster than the speed of light!’
Children from across the nursery entered into the excitement and helped to make props. They even experimented with the lighting of their sets, with one child suggesting that they put yellow fabric over the lights to make it look sunnier. This inspired other children to try the effect with paper and torches.
Izzy (four years, five months) asked to watch a ‘real animation’, prompting Dillon to question what the difference was between the animations they had made and those they had watched on the computer. Izzy identified that theirs didn’t have sound, so they decided to add some. This started with basic speech but led to children making and recording their own sound effects – from splashing in water to recreating a shark’s tummy rumbling by rolling jars across the floor.
ON THE BIG SCREEN
At the end of the nursery year, the three animations were ready to show at the local cinema to the children, their parents and teachers from their feeder schools, along with a film charting the creative process.
‘The screening went so well,’ reflects Dillon. ‘The children were so happy to see their work on the big screen. It was very powerful for them to have personally created something so huge. The parents and teachers were also blown away with the process of learning along with viewing the finished product.’
They watched the Underwater Animation as a cunning shark gobbles up a mermaid and then marries an octopus; they saw a Dream Animation of Mia’s family following a map to locate treasure, and the Dinosaur Animation where a diplodocus causes a chain of chaos after crashing into a T-Rex.
Dillon says, ‘There were so many outcomes – use of technology, creating narratives and characters along with the props and sets, making predictions and problem-solving. A big outcome was the ability to work with each other, listen and understand what each other wanted, and use that to drive the project forward together.’
Nursery World Show
Discover how to harness the creative and learning potential of digital technology at our Nursery World Show masterclass ‘Playing and creating in a digital world’, in London on 2 February.
Keynote speaker Professor Elizabeth Wood, of the University of Sheffield, will look at the importance of play, chart the emergence of ‘converged play’ – in which children combine traditional and digital resources – and assess its implications.
Members of the Balham Nursery Schoolteam will explain how they addressed their concerns about digital technology which they now use in creative and complex ways to support children’s investigations and learning.
Dr Liz Chesworth, University of Sheffield, will report on the MakeEY project which is exploring new pedagogies to inspire creativity and advance digital learning in line with best early years practice.
Find out more at: www.nurseryworldshow.com
MORE INFORMATION
Contact Little Barn Owls to purchase the DVD of the project: www.littlebarnowls.co.uk