Since discovering the CommonCraft ‘in plain english’ videos, I have become a real fan. Zombies in Plain English is one of my favourites.

For years, both personally and professionally, I have been interested in clay and stop-motion animation. In 1986, I had my Year 5-6 students use 8mm film to create clay-animations. They loved it and I still have the films they made. More recently I have had boys in years 4, 5 and 7 do clay-animation (some indirectly through another staff member) and boys in Year 5 and 6 use paper cut-outs in stop-motion animation.

While I don’t have access to an IWB, I’d really like to create some content for my maths classes. I mentioned this to Trudy on the ACCE08 Study Tour and said I just didn’t have the time. Her reply was ‘why not get your students to make them!’ Simple!!

So, for the first week of term 3, while some of my boys catch up on a few tests they missed, the remainder will be making their own maths videos, using the “in Plain English” approach. While I have suggested they use PowerPoint or PhotoStory3 (those that want to use stopmation just have to ask), I do still want it to be animated.

You’ll find the task here in pdf1 pdf2 format that includes a storyboard and an assessment rubric.

I’ll see how it goes and post the better ones next week. Fingers crossed.