Ten Years of Animation Assemblies: So Many Beautiful Films to Reflect Back On!

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The 5 – 10-year-old audience at the 2024 Friends Seminary Animation Assembly did not disappoint. Their heartfelt reactions to and smart insights about the films I showed were the perfect send-off to a sabbatical about animation, the goal of which is to find even more ways to bring smart and expressive shorts to children. 

These assemblies began ten years ago when Friends Seminary parents asked me to help promote the New York International Children’s Film festival. This was a joyful assignment because I had been taking my own children for years and wanted to share our delight in the beautiful and unusual films we watched each year. 

Because I am a huge fan of stop motion, and children are enthralled by the physicality of the stop motion process, stop motion is what I chose for the theme of the first animation assembly. Back in 2015 I offered grades K-4 a behind the scenes look at Ukrainian animator Katya Chepik stop motion short “Imagination”


 The Letter from the stop motion versions of Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad Series, also captivated the students for they, like Toad, were hoping for their own letters as they participated in the First Grade post office project.

The behind the scenes documentary of animator John Matthew, the animator of bringing clay and cellophane to life is impressive, especially because the technical advances enjoyed by today’s stop motion studios were decades away.

Since that first assembly in 2015 I’ve developed a series of themes for the animation assemblies that  I cycle through – hand drawing in animation, CGI, Sound, and Story. 

These are screenshots from just a few of the beautiful films I’ve been able to showcase at Friends.

The assemblies occur in late January so that children can get excited about the New York International Children’s Film festival around the time when parents can get tickets. (In late October, I’ve added in a bonus topic, the idea of transformation in animation and how  Halloween is also about transformation.) 

Though a big part of these assemblies is giving children a chance to see films by lesser known animators,  to illustrate important points, I’ve also included show clips from favorite animated features such as Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, Inside Out, Encanto, and Soul.

As I reflect back on these assemblies, what consistently made for a successful assembly were the riveting stories the stop motion, 2D and 3D animators told through their art and the compelling personal stories about becoming animators.

Here is the slideshow from this year’s Friends Seminary Animation assembly

The theme was the Importance of Story in Animation.

Stay tuned for more classroom activities to support the animation assembly themes.

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Checking in with Robots

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As part of a new First Grade series of Creative Computing lessons that weave together computational thinking, robotics, SEL and literacy, first graders engaged in a robot “check in.” First the homeroom teachers and I asked students to choose a robot from pictures of many imaginary ones. Then in a turn and talk with a partner, they let one another know why they chose that one. How does this robot make you feel and how is this robot similar or different from you are other questions we also asked them to talk about.

As a follow-up to this activity, students drew their own picture of a robot. Before they began we asked them to think about what their robot would be able to do. Their robot could be one that was based on one of the earlier robot choices. They were also free to devise one entirely out of their imagination. Here are some of the robots the First Graders came up with.

In both activities were chosen to become friends or because they had similar characterisics.

One of the goals of this activity is to help children articulate the difference between robots and people. When we talked about this some of their responses were,

A person comes from the mommy’s belly; a robot is made of electronics.

A person eats real food and a robot does not.

One of the most interesting parts of this work so far has been seeing that like stuffed animals, children naturally want to connect, befriend and care for robots, especially the delightful-looking imaginary ones. This relationship, like the one between a child and a beloved stuffed toy, can be an important step in learning how to take care of oneself.

As AI seeps into our lives, we do want our children to be able think deeply about what makes people unique. This is opportunity to ask big questions about the differences between humans and machines so a next generation makes sure that machines don’t go awry. At the same time, making an emotional connection with a playful, imaginary robot is a natural and healthy part of growing up.

In subsequent lessons, we’re looking more closely at “real” vs. “imaginary” robots. First graders also write simple code to control their own and then the Bee-bot robots physical movement.

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A Warm Welcome to the Finch!

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The first time the Third graders encountered the Finch robot, they drew it, made detailed observations, and asked questions about it.

The second time the Third Graders encountered the finch they started to label their drawings and answer their own questions. After a brief demonstration on how to pair the Finch with an iPAd and launch its coding app, FinchBlox, small groups took to the floor to explore.

Grade Three students learned that FinchBlox coding was challenging but not frustrating. They figured out what some of the buttons on the Finch were for.

The room erupted in excitement as learners coded Finch to move, turn, light up and play notes. After coding in the app’s “Level 1” I asked “what else would you like to be able to code the Finch to do?”

Some wanted to be able to simultaneously light it up and have it play sounds. Others wanted it to faster. A few of the children were very particularly curious about they might program the Finch to draw.

Level 2 of FinchBlox gave Third Graders more choice. It offers a wider range of notes and colors and enables students to move the Finch further with greater speed.  But still, Level 2, didn’t accomplish everything they wanted it to do!

On to Level 3! Stay tuned.

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Third Grade Discuss their Responsibilities as Digital Citizens

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Students discussed their responsibilities to themselves, their community and family and to the world.

In the homerooms of 3C, 3Je, and 3Jo, all Third Graders all began a series of Digital Citizenship lessons by watching the Common Sense Media video “Rings of Responsibility.” It’s about how our actions can influence our lives, our communities and our world. 

We then spoke about how actions in the digital world can also have ripple effects. According to Common Sense Media,

Teaching digital citizenship is all about helping kids think beyond themselves and recognize the ripple effects of their actions. Personal responsibility is important, but understanding their responsibilities to others can help kids unlock new ways to learn and connect with their communities — and even change those communities for the better.

To help students connect their own experiences to their understanding of  Digital Citizenship, we then asked them to discuss and then use color coded  post-its to write how  they can be responsible to 

Themselves

Their Families and Communities and

the World 

when they are online. all the Third Grade homeroom teachers and I were impressed with our students’ thoughtful responses!

Brainstorming ways to be a Digital Citizen

 

Here are a few examples from the inner  ring where students  provided examples of being responsible to themselves:

Make videos to make myself laugh

Give myself screen limits

Try to get off my device and do more things in real life

Doing more mindset before doing a digital task

Charge my iPad and make sure it doesn’t die.

Talk to my grandparents more so they know more about me

I don’t share too much personal information

The middle ring was for ways to be responsible to one’s family and community. Here’s a sampling of those good ideas:

Play games with my friends nicely

Help my grandma with her device

Looking at photos with my friends to bring back memories

I make games in Scratch for people to play

Call family on holidays to celebrate with them

I talk to my family on FaceTime and we talk about what’s going on

Drawing online and sharing it

When someone needs help in a game you are good at you could help them

Make nice comments or do not comment

Don’t share things about friends or family online

Stand up for each other if someone has a mean comment

Don’t click on something if you think it is a scam

Show Scratch project to Kindergarteners

Say nice things about people’s games in Scratch

Finally, the outer ring was for ways that students can engage digitally in the world.

This proved more challenging. Students were still able to come up with some powerful instances of helping others even beyond their family and community.

I turn off the lights when I’m done in the room

Be kind to people on video games

Don’t use negative messages online

Create an educational videos

Don’t send something hurtful online

We are following up these discussions by going through the Friends Seminary Third and Fourth Grade Digital Citizenship agreement and asking parents, caregivers and their children to read it, discuss it, and bring it back to Friends signed.

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Tech Returns to 308

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Welcome Back Fourth Grade!  Welcome Third Graders! Last year we did the best we could. Now in the fall of 2021, it is wonderful to return to a dedicated space for Third and Fourth Grade Computer Science, Design and Robots. … Continue reading

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Third and Fourth Grade Technology Classes for 2020 – 2021

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Students in Third Grade have Tech Class first semester. Starting in January, Fourth Graders will have Tech class for the rest of the year.  The 70 minute classes are once a week.

So far, spending over an hour each week with Third and the Fourth Graders in their pods has been a wonderful opportunity to support children as they learn classroom technology. In the separate DLOP section, I try to make sure they are comfortable with the technology they need to connect with their homeroom friends and teachers and learn along with them. In all the Tech classes, I also provide ample opportunities for your children to explore programming, graphics, and data science through playful activities that build problem solving and computational thinking skills.

What’s Different this Year? 

Class Size

These classes are smaller. Over the past nine years at Friends, I’ve had 18-20 students in my classes.  Though I had the mechanics of 18 students down,  the smaller size and calm environment provides more opportunities to work one-on-one with students, helping them overcome tech glitches and to encouraging them to find creative solutions to problems

iPads instead of Computers

We are using iPads rather than computers of our makerspace.  Scratch works well on iPads, making it possible to explore many, if not all of the developmentally appropriate coding concepts I’ve taught with computers in a dedicated space.

Greater Integration of Technology throughout the Curriculum

Yet another change is that this year’s Third Graders are hitting the ground running with  tools they need for their homeroom and tech class work. For example, in year’s past it took longer for all the students to get to know their Google usernames and passwords. This practice in the homerooms is freeing us up to explore computational thinking with Scratch earlier than I anticipated.

New Ways to Share and Collaborate

Necessity brings about innovation. Social distancing means that we need to find new ways to share and collaborate.  We can’t rush over to one another to share discoveries or provide assistance the way we used to. Now with the new polycom cameras, zoom and airplay technology, students can share their digital work or a photo of their work by hand. They love seeing their art and their projects displayed at the front of the room or on Zoom.

Finding Safe Connections with Buddies during this Unusual Year

The buddy program has been a big part of Third and Fourth Grade. The portion of that program that I have been responsible for, something called robot buddy time, is when Third and Fourth graders teach their kindergarten buddies about the Beebot and Bluebot robots and ScratchJr. What better way is there to reinforce understanding than to know you have to consolidate your understanding and teach someone else? Last year the Third Graders did send letters to their kindergarten buddies and they wrote back. This year, we’ll find new ways for Third Graders to teach their buddies about programming.

What Has Stayed the Same?

Digital Citizenship

How our students interact with devices, with one another and the broader community is as important as ever. Our Digital Citizenship Guide, located on the Friends website, still holds up. It’s infused with Quaker principles. We will also have discussions in which children bring to light specialist

Art as a Pathway into Programming

Over many years the curriculum I’ve developed has been infused with art. Perhaps this because I have an art background. It is also because I want the programming to be accessible to all the children. If learners create a character that they then code then they become more engaged in their work. It’s also a lot more fun to look at. This is a way of leveling the playing field and allowing all the children, whether or not they have a programming background or their parents are in tech, to do well. I have been teaching programming for so long I am also able to provide those students who come to class with some knowledge of programming opportunities to extend their learning.

Drawing isn’t easy for everyone. For those who would like more support, I have wonderful books about how to draw characters and animals. In Google Classroom, I have scanned in pages from these books or provided links for comparable resources. Of course there are children who love to draw from their imagination. However they get their characters in as long as they are original, they come together and form a team in the digital sphere.

Teamwork

Working as a team is another part of technology class that has not changed. We just need to find new ways to do make it work.

For example we can share a spreadsheet in Google Classroom in students type in challenges they are encountering in coding. This is a good place to find others who may be able to help.  When they help each other, they grow strong.

Programming Concepts

Below are some of the concepts that Third Graders will be learning as they embark on their first major programming project. I’ll update the list soon with skills that are particular to the Fourth Grade maze game project that this year will happen in the winter.

If statements are important because the characters come together and only if they are a certain distance apart do they begin to talk. It used to be that they almost touched each other but maybe that distance will change this year for obvious reasons.

There’s math in context, x, y , percentages and angles that are Traditionally taught later but if they are they are exposed to these ideas in this playful way then when they learn about them later they’ll  be able to reflect back and it will make more sense.

There is importance in labeling.

Broadcast messaging is when the two sprites send messages to one another and therefore. can be more interactive.

Throughout the curriculum I emphasize the importance of debugging and how mistakes are really important. If you persevere you learn from those mistakes and it’s all part of the process.

Data Science

This year I am also going to reinvigorate the data science portion of the curriculum that I’ve built over the years. It’s so critical that our students know how to gather data, look at it, consider privacy issues, and be able to back up their assertions with facts.

Examples of Scratch Projects

Here is an example of Scratch project that I provided as an initial playground for the Third Graders . The students photographed their work and uploaded the pictures into Google Classroom. I created this sample with many different characters from students in Courtney and Jennifer’s class. Students are making copies of it and using it to explore basic Scratch commands.

A Third Grade Scratch Project

A Fourth Grade Maze Game

Friends Dance Party

And that’s about it for now friends. I’m excited about getting to know you children better and working with them for Third Grade and also Fourth Grade.

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Third Graders Branch Out with Physical Computing

During the first part of the 2019 – 2020 school year, Third Graders created their own digital characters, and then they coded these delightful creations with Scratch so that they  could meet and then have a conversation with one other. With Scratch, the Third Graders also make something surprising happen after the conversation ends.

This is an example of a Third Grader’s Scratch Project.

Third Graders Bring their characters and Backgrounds to Life

So far this year,, Third Graders have also received and learned to use their Friends Seminary Google Drive accounts. They are also preparing to teach their buddies how to solve problems with the Bee-Bot robot.

Now we are branching out with the Micro:bit chip. Instead of getting their digital characters to move when the space bar is pressed, Third Graders are learning to use a magic want (and concealed Bluetooth enabled Micro:bit chip) to activate their digital creations. When a digital world responds to something in the world of material objects, it’s Physical Computing!

Wand prototypes developed by 7th Graders.

As we create the wands with branches and art supplies, we are asking families for selected materials from home:

Fabric Scraps of no more than one yard. Make sure it’s light weight cloth that would be suitable for a decorating a wand that will wave. Perhaps it’s shiny or sheer or it glows in the dark? If you are not sure if the material will be suitable, feel free to email a photo to Judith: jseidel@friendsseminary.org.

Silk Ribbon. Please no gift package ribbons.

Beads, wire, and other small materials that could be attached to a branch.

We will be collecting these supplies in a marked box in the lobby starting Friday, February 21.

Don’t worry. If you do not have materials from home for the wands, Judith will make sure there are plenty of supplies on hand in Room 308.

And we will provide the branches! Can’t wait to make magic in Room 308.

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New Scratch Accounts for Fourth Graders

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This fall, Fourth Graders are using  the block-based visual programming language Scratch to design and program an interactive, maze game. This is an opportunity for the students to learn more advanced coding while also taking advantage of their artistic and creative skills! Previous classes of Fourth Graders have constructed visually compelling and exciting games, and our student teacher Kelly Grey and I are thrilled to help the class of 2028 create their unique variations on the project.

This winter, students will use the Micro:bit chip with Scratch to reconstruct and reimagine stuffed toys. When the button on the Micro:bit chips are pressed or the chip is shaken, animations will play, sounds will be heard, and stories will be told.

Kelly Grey and I are happy to let you know that this fall, we have given the Fourth Graders their own Scratch Student accounts. The randomly generated usernames they received do not reveal their real names or any identifying information.

 We created these Scratch accounts so that the Fourth Graders can easily access their maze games and Micro:bit projects from any computer at school or at home. Although we have not assigned any Scratch homework at this time, it is fine for your child to sign in to Scratch at home and show you what they’ve been working on. Please also feel empowered to continue to enforce your at-home rules for screen time!

Another advantage of setting up Scratch accounts is that we will be able to access student work easily and keep good track of student progress. This will enable us to provide the support they need to succeed. 

Please contact Judith (jseidel@friendsseminary.org) if you have any questions about your Fourth Grader’s Scratch Account or if your child forgets their username or password. Online Scratch can be accessed at Scratch.mit.edu.

We are looking forward to seeing all that your students create in Scratch this year!

 

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Wide Walls Outside and Inside 308

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Wide Walls and The Lower School Computation Thinking Curriculum

Wide Walls of the Halls

Looking to the 2019 – 2020 year, I wasn’t thinking that the students I taught Lower School’s Room 308 would have a new experience of their physical space. Sure, I had lots of exciting programming, design, and physical computing projects planned for this school year, but I thought the places where students would engage in those projects, the classroom I share with Remy Mansfield, would remain basically the same. Our room is not one of the new ones in the townhouses. Nor was it renovated over the summer.

 What I did not take into account were the welcoming wider walls of the halls right outside the door.

 The stunning removal of the lockers in our Lower School halls offers new possibilities for our projects.

 Here are a few:

As students prepare robot activities for their younger kindergarten and first grade buddies each year, they have spilled out the door into the hall to experiment with BeeBots, BlueBots, and KIBOs. Within our wider walls, there will be more room for in the hall for designing mats and obstacle courses.

 Recording sound amidst a classroom’s buzz has proved a challenge. Our less congested halls can provide students with places for recording sound effects for the maze games they program each year.

 Last spring students helped old toys new life, students typed out the words their stuffies would say. I am hoping that this year, with more places to go work on making sound recording, student will generate their own animal noises and stories.

And I wonder, might these wider hallways also be a place for students to build and create in connection to many areas of curriculum?

I am are fortunate to be mentoring a student teacher this fall and an intern this spring. Both will be able to work with small groups of students out in the hall.

 The Wide Walls of Lifelong Kindergarten by Mitch Resnick

 When I arrived at school this year and found new inspiration simply walking down the hall, I couldn’t help think about another set of wide walls.  In his book Life Long Kindergarten, Mitch Resnick writes of the wide walls offered by the Scratch programming language.

When discussing technologies to support learning and education, my mentor Seymour Papert (who, sadly, passed away last month) often emphasized the importance of “low floors” and “high ceilings.” For a technology to be effective, he said, it should provide easy ways for novices to get started (low floor) but also ways for them to work on increasingly sophisticated projects over time (high ceiling). With his Logo programming language, for example, kids could start by drawing simple squares and triangles, but gradually create more complex geometric patterns over time.

But the most important lesson that I learned from Seymour isn’t captured in the low-floor/high-ceiling metaphor. For a more complete picture, we need to add an extra dimension: wide walls. It’s not enough to provide a single path from low floor to high ceiling; we need to provide wide walls so that kids can explore multiple pathways from floor to ceiling.

Why are wide walls important? We know that kids will become most engaged, and learn the most, when they are working on projects that are personally meaningful to them. But no single project will be meaningful to all kids. So if we want to engage all kids—from many different backgrounds, with many different interests—we need to support a wide diversity of pathways and projects.

Wide walls has become a guiding design principle for my Lifelong Kindergarten research group at the MIT Media Lab. As we develop our Scratch programming language, for example, we explicitly design it so that kids can create a wide range of projects—not just games, but also interactive stories, art, music, animations, and simulations. And as we develop and introduce new robotics technologies, our goal is to enable everyone to create projects based on their own interests—not just traditional robots, but also interactive sculptures and musical instruments.

When Friends students start to program, the floor is low. Scratch programming projects in Third grade begin slowly and students have time to explore simple commands before they use more complex programming tools. For those who want to extend their learning, there are also more complex options at the end of each project. Our ceilings get very tall!

It is also my goal to create a social, emotional, artistic, and academic learning space with wide walls. This means different possibilities for children who bring different interests and strengths to programming. Scratch enables students to build projects that are stem from what they care about give them a chance to build on their unique strength and interests.  A Third Grader who loves to draw, for example, has time to carefully craft their own expressive characters as they enter into their first big Scratch project. Those who enjoy expressing themselves through stories can develop in-depth conversations between their sprites (characters).  When students create soundtracks for their work, those who love composing music shine.

One of the many things I love most about Friends Seminary is that this is a community that wholeheartedly embraces the wide walls approach. As educators we that for students to be successful we must give them multiple, equally valid paths into learning.

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Tinkering with Micro:bit and Scratch 3.0 Beta

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A dinosaur roars. Rainbow fish swims randomly. Four stuffed creatures “play” songs when students toss them around the room. What does all this play have in common? It all involves a toy plus a Micro:bit chip! The chips are programmed in Scratch so that when the toy is tossed, shaken or its “A” or “B” button is pressed, something happens in the world of Scratch.

Students in the Wednesday after school coding class have been programming with Scratch for years. It’s the Scratch 3.0 Micro:bit extension that’s new.  Never before could we connect the Mico:bit to Scratch via Bluetooth.

As students dove into this project, there were plenty of glitches. It took a while  to upgrade  the computers in 308 so that the operating system would be compatible with Scratch Link, a program that must run in order for the Micro:bit extension to function.  Since Scratch 3.0’s developers have not released all Scratch 3.0’s saving feathers, we had to figure out work-arounds so that we could save and share  Scratch 3.0 Beta programs.

Coming up with a method for affixing and/or embedding the Micro:bit Chip was about trial and error. Since most of the toys were fluffy, duct tape was often better choice than Velcro. What was really gratifying was using the seam ripper to cut open the toys, removing their stuffing and attaching a Micro:bit chip inside. In the end there was not one perfect solution. In addition to the fish, the singing cubes and dinosaur, our collection of revamped toys included a penguin who was cured of pink eye, a toy car that served as a game controller and laughing and singing Elmo.

The culmination of this project was taking the toys, Scratch 3.0 and Micro:bit to Scratch Day at Teacher’s College on December 1. In our “sold out” workshop, students in the after school coding activity demonstrated their coded toys and then they taught participants of all ages how to revamp their own toys and program them with Scratch 3.0 and the Micro:bit chip. Our high school assistant teacher Stephen and five Friends parents joined the effort.

We also brought along plenty of duct tape and Velcro!

There were squeals of delight when a preschooler and her Dad programmed a pink unicorn to sing Happy Birthday. The Micro:bit chip was conveniently located in a purple purse that the unicorn carried.

A teen challenged himself by beginning to build a complex game environment that was controlled by Micro:bi

At the end of the workshop, all the participants shared their challenges and successes and what they hope to do next with Scratch 3.0 and Micro:bit. Here’s what one of our adult participants had to say.

A big thank you to The Exploratorium’s Tinkering Studio for inspiring me to try out this activity, Michel Tempel, head of the Logo Foundation, for organizing Scratch Day, Hope Chafiian of The Spence School for lending us Micro:bits so that all participants could work with their own Micro:bit, Friends parents for helping keep track of our students and materials, Stephen, our high school assistant teacher for his amazing tech support, the students from Friends for persevered through all the glitches, and to the participants for bringing their keen desire to learn and play to our Toy Tinkering workshop on Scratch Day.

The full release of Scratch 3.0 will happen in January. I am hoping to bring this new activity to my Friends Fourth Grade classes after winter break.

 

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