Finding fun with Stop Motion Animation

We had a great 2 weeks with things getting back to normal finally!  We did our normal school work - math, spelling, science - you know, the required stuff.  But sometime during our 2 weeks of returning to normal, my Lord of the Ring obsessed and Lego loving boys discovered the magic of stop-motion animation.

They started off with Legos.  They would spend all their free time building sets together, and would make little skits for the Lego figures to carry out.  They would record it all on my camera, one photo at a time.  Then they would play it back on my camera by holding down the right button.  After they had done a few videos like this, I showed them how to put it on the computer and make it into a movie on Windows Movie Maker.  Here is what they came up with:

After making the video of Frodo disappearing with the Ring, Nathaniel made mention that he wished that there was really a ring that could make you disappear.  After that, Nathaniel and Ephraim disappeared for the day.  When I called Ephraim and Nathaniel down for dinner, they couldn't WAIT to show me what they had been working on.  They had applied what they had learned about Lego stop motion animation and made a stop motion animation scene of them using a ring to disappear.

I'm very proud of the creativity and initiative they took to learn this skill!  And they've had a TON of fun learning how to do this!