Fun for Older Kids: Create Stop Motion on Powerpoint

Our family uses technology for all kinds of things, not just entertainment.  I wanted to share a stop motion project Miss 10 has been working on since she was 9 years old. So, that’s over a year! As the kids get older, I find it’s important to engage them on a more detailed level and also allow them to explore their own interests through activity and play.

The project wasn’t done in big chunks but off and on, mainly during school holidays over the course of a year.  A simple stop motion animation on Powerpoint is an easy process really (so I’ve discovered), but the good thing is you can get as geeky and technical about it as you like.

I didn’t know how to do this at all — that is: I didn’t teach my daughter how to to do it — so it’s all credit to her for this post.

Guest post by Pip

In general, I like to think of ways to be creative…anything from craft, games with my siblings to even animation on the computer.  I love doing this stuff, it’s so fun and it makes me smile.  I want it share it so other kids my age might discover the joy of this as well.

This is the project I’ve been working on for a while. There are 156 slides in this one. 

To make your own stop motion animation on Powerpoint, this is what you need to do.

Step 1

Open a blank Powerpoint presentation. 

Step 2

In the Transition Tab, set timings to 0.01 or 0.02 (click After)

Step 3

In the Slide Show Tab, click Set Up and make sure the use timings, if present, is on (and manual is off)

Step 4

Create your first slide. You can use shapes, clip art or anything you want.  It’s best to start simple. This is how I did my first slide using shapes and clip art.

Step 5

Now it’s time to start animating.  You need to click on the slide (right click it) and press duplicate to make another slide exactly the same.   Then move the objects you want to animate just a little bit at a time (the video shows it a little better).  And then duplicate that slide and do the process again and again until you have at least 10 slides.  You can take a look at how it’s going by pressing the Slide Show Tab and then from beginning (or from start if you’re using a Mac).

Tip

It’s important to move some objects off the screen. For example, if you have a cloud in the sky, and a car on the ground, it will still look good if you only move the car along. However, if you want the scenes to change, then you also need to move the cloud off the screen too.  Once you start playing around with it, you start to see what works, and what doesn’t.

Video Tutorial 

Here’s a tutorial Mum and I put together.

This is a great idea, it’s on the computer, but it’s not games.  You can still have fun but learn important skills at the same time.  A good thing about this, is you can keep on coming back to it; it’s not something you have to complete in one day. IT’S SO FUN!

More Stop Motion

My daughter has also worked on other stop motion projects using my iPhone and Lego with the Stop Motion Studio App. Below are two episodes. Again, I wasn’t involved in this project (I simply facilitated her interest buy finding an app and letting work it out). It’s great to see my kids using technology and their imagination. Most excellent.

Pin it for Later

You can re-pin this idea for later here.

More

Activity ideas for 8 – 12 year olds (that won’t break the bank)