Animation-ish

Sample Lessons & Activities

Animation-ish is incredibly easy to use! Teachers often report that they find it simple to start working animation into their existing curriculum, whether they are teaching kindergarten or 12th grade.

Animation-ish helps teachers and students find their voice and create original work. They can animate to share their ideas, projects, and knowledge. When students create an animation about a subject they are exploring for the first time, they will remember it better and be able to present it to others like an expert!

Animation-ish comes with great activities and samples to get you started (see below),
but here are just a few films we've received from educators who came up with
their own ideas for fun cross-curricular animations!

The activity section of the program, written entirely by teachers from a variety of disciplines and grade levels, is included as a PDF. Activities include samples from K-12, math, science, language arts, foreign languages, and fine arts. These activities are really meant to serve as "idea-starters." They are included to help get your creative juices flowing, so you can start integrating animation into any of your lessons.

The program also comes with a folder called "Classroom Samples" (you can browse to it in the software's "Project Vault"). The folder contains all the actual Animation-ish files created by the teachers who contributed to the guide. You can learn from how they set up their animations, or modify the files for your class!

We are grateful to Wade Whitehead, Terry Shay, and Coleen Collette for their assistance with our guide. Below you will find two highlighted lessons from the guide.

leaf v02 Changing Seasons

Age span: 4-6
Curriculum Alignment: Life Science
Standard: Recognize changes in appearance that animals and plants go through as the seasons change.

Learner Outcomes/Objectives:

Student will identify the four seasons.
Student will document changes in a tree throughout the seasons.
Student will understand that there are changes in animal behavior as the seasons cycle.
Student will understand that there are changes in plants as seasons cycle.

Instructions for Activity:

Draw a tree as it would look (or as it has looked) as the seasons change.
Add details to your drawing that show ways that animals and plants change with the seasons.

Political Cartoon

Age Span: 13-18
Time Allotment: 30 Minutes
Curriculum Alignment:
Social Studies/History/Government

Standards: The National Standards for History

Understands recent developments in foreign and domestic politics.
Understands economic, social, and cultural developments in contemporary United States.
All students, given the Animation-Ish program, will create a political cartoon based on a current event.

Instructions for Activity:

Find political cartoons from newspapers or from a website like www.politicalcartoons.com
Discuss the way political cartoons are used in society.
Have students look through newspapers to find an issue they can use.
Students will go to a computer and create a animated political cartoon.
- Students want to start with Wiggledoodle-Ish as a starting point.
- If the cartoon gets more complex, student will want to take their initial drawing into the next level, Flipbook-Ish.
- Cartoons may be shared in class or on a website by choosing the “Share” option.