Clay Animation Podcast Bonanza

Thanks to Greg Paulsen, Kevin Hodgson, and Carolyn Daly for joining me to discuss the ins and outs of clay animation in the classroom including rationale, sample projects ideas, and down and dirty tips on how to get started.

If you have iTunes, please subscribe to the podcast. Future podcasts are now being edited. If you don't have iTunes, you can download the podcast from here.

Clay animation is a fantastic way to engage students in learning and motivate reluctant writers. I'm thinking it would be a great way to illustrate things like the heart in the upcoming Mystery to Medicine unit or the different places Bill Pinkney visited in Journeys. It's not just for your gifted students, it's for anyone who's visual or kinesthetic and it works particularly well for the students who are struggling. They're the ones who need additional repetition.

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Comment by Sharon on July 2, 2009 at 10:27am: I have recently had a student show me a clay animation he did for a project. It was incredible. I can think of so many activities this could provide for student engagement. My concern is the amount of time it takes. I plan on looking further into this as something that can be implemented into my classroom!

Comment by Mathew Needleman on July 2, 2009 at 10:35am: @Sharon,
Because students can work on the clay animation projects independently these projects don't necessarily take up lots of class teaching time. Setting deadlines and time limits helps a lot. I recorded a podcast of interviews from teachers doing clay animation projects. It might be worth a listen if you're going to start implementing this... http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=271...