Today I had one of the best lessons ever! To be honest it had nothing to do with the curriculum, but everything to do with fun, creativity and positivity in school. Like most of what I think are the best learning exeriences it was organic and basically unplanned.
After a particularly arduous rehearsal for the Christmas production I felt that the children needed a bit of a lift. I decided to let them loose on Pivot Stick Animator which I’ve been looking at for a while.
I decided to take a bit of a risk and announced that there eadbgoing to be a competition to see who could make their man do the best breakdance. I played the children a track from my iPhone and them let them loose. No instructions of anything.
I was amazed by the results that you can see bellow.
The children were completely engaged, belong each other, laughing and learning! It really was one of those moments that you’ll remember.
Pivot is a favorite of my sixth graders, too, and they “get it” with little instruction from me. I just show them the basics, how to use a background from Paint, and they are off … I like the idea of a Pivot Dance Contest, though. Might have to steal that one from ya.
Kevin
[...] are taking part in a friendly Christmas challenge with Mr. Kirkpatrick in the UK. His students have been playing with Pivot stick figure animation, and so has Huzzah. We [...]
Hi! That sounds like lots of fun, and my class is going to do something like that as well! Pivot is a fun thing to play with, and fun to work with as well. I have my Pivot Break Dance in Windows Movie Maker (well that’s what we did… made it into a movie), added a title page, creative commons music, a credits page, and funky transitions to make an awesome little break-dancing videos. Mine isn’t very break-dancy, but it’s pretty cool. Everyone is having tons of fun with this activity! Thanks for the idea!
Haley
From ‘Huzzah’
Hi Mr. KP: well, thanks to your inspiration my kids gave the dance challenge a try. We have one Pivot up on our class blog and hope to have more on our individual blogs tomorrow. Drop by for a look, and thanks for sharing a great idea.
[...] in a challenge. This is a Pivot Stick-Figure Animation challenge. Our challenge idea was from Mr. Kirkpatrick’s class in the UK. We all made the animations into videos, and this is mine: Dancin’ on Christmas from [...]
[...] class is now involved in a friendly challenge using pivot animation, being runed by Mr Kirkpatrick in the [...]
Hello again–just wanted to let you and your students know that we are so grateful for the fun idea to wind down before the holidays. Many students have finished their videos, uploaded to Vimeo and embedded in their blogs. If you have time to drop by, take a look at our post here.
Cheers and happy holidays!
Hello Mr. Kirkpatrick,
I am Nicholas from Canada.
Our class did pivot animations aswell. We got the idea from your class. Do you live in Manchester? If you do, my favorite soccer team Manchester United is from your city! Have you heard of Manchester United. If so, who is your favorite soccer player on the team. I look forward to your response.
[...] I then gave the children a chance to use Pivot Stick Animator, as suggested by MrKp. We had a few network issues which restricted our use of the software a little, but the class [...]