Clay Animation Studio: Make Your Own Jungle Movie is one of the products of the Clay Animation Studio series by Hinkler Books. The kit is an educational and entertaining product that enables children as young as 8 to create their own clay animation movie. This is a great product to have in a homeschool, as it infuses creative play, builds on some basic skills, and introduces new niche educational ventures, especially for older children.
What is in the Clay Animation Studio: Make Your Own Jungle Movie Kit
The Make Your Own Jungle Movie kit contains several items:
- 200g worth of modeling clay as a basic kit.
- A jungle backdrop that is suitable for the movie.
- An instructional booklet on how to start creating a simple clay animation movie.
- A clay animation software in the form of a CD.
How to Create the Clay Animation Jungle Movie
The instructional clay animation booklet provides a step-by-step guide on how to create an entire clay animation movie. It first provides tips on the use of clay, the melding of colors, and the modelling of characters.
The book then walks through on how to create a storyboard, allowing children to infuse their creativity of story-telling.
Instructions on setting up the backdrop then follow.
Lastly, the technicalities of filming the animation are laid out in detail, including the know-how of the software to complete the movie.
What Skills can be Learned from the Clay Animation: Make Your Own Jungle Movie
Children will be able to learn basic clay modelling skills. Besides encouraging them to be artistic and creative, many find clay modelling therapeutic as it involves the sense of touch. Clay modelling also improves hand-eye co-ordination.
Those who enjoy story telling and fiction writing, may take their skills to a new level by incorporating these clay characters into their stories.
Slightly older children will be able to appreciate photography skills, as a huge part of clay animation involves photography.
Lastly, children will learn the basic skills for animation, through the CD software that comes with the kit. This also builds on their computer skills.
Why Homeschoolers should Incorporate Clay Animation into their Curriculum
There are various reasons why homeschoolers should look into clay animation as part of their homeschool curriculum.
Firstly, for families with more than one child, clay animation can be a group project. Younger children will probably not have the patience to sit through the filming process, but would enjoy playing with clay and making their own figurines. Older children may want to explore the actual animation process in more depth.
Secondly, clay animation is great for unit studies. Expressing whatever the children have studied in an art-form such as clay modelling reinforces the learning process. Making short films about what they have learned is an interesting way for parents to gauge their children's appreciation of their studies.
Lastly, clay animation is very much a niche study on it's own. For homeschoolers who are interested in animation and / or film, building up from clay animation is a great way to polish the skills that are involved in the art.
Clay animation, through the actual Clay Animation Studio product line, is entertaining and educational at the same time. It is a great tool for homeschoolers as there are so many dimensions to the activity, beginning at clay modelling all the way to understanding the animation software.
Maria Zain - Maria is a wife, mother, coffee addict, homeschooler and writer - not in that particular order. On most days, all roles get muddled up ...
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