Learning new skills isn’t something children should only do at school. There’s a lot of fun interesting topics that aren’t taught at traditional (and even more modern) schools, and it’s often the parent’s job to expose their kids to new things. Homeschooling parents are knows to take control on their child’s education in a more hand-on way, but it’s not exclusive to them.

I think teaching your kid animation can broaden your child’s artistic, social, creative and technical horizons like no other art form. Here’s why.

Engagement

Animation is exciting and relatable for young children, and the process gets them engaged physically as well as mentally with their projects and subjects.

If you’re a parent to young children you probably know this better than anyone – kids love watching animated shows and movies. That’s why making animation would be one of the most engaging activities you could do with them. They’re already sold on the concept.

Communication Skills

Animation involves taking ideas in one’s head and figuring out how to break it down into visual information that others will understand. What better way to help your child find new ways to communicate their ideas and feelings than creating short fun animated sequences?

Younger kids often don’t have all the tools to express themselves properly, and using art is a great way to get a window into what they’re going through in a way words often can’t.

Self-Expression

Animation gives children a chance to make something personal that represents their own ideas and embodies their own effort. Young adults don’t always have new and exciting ways to express themselves artistically. There’s writing and drawing, which are rather common, but they might not work for your child, and they might think of themselves as not-creative because of it. Why not give them something different to try? They might find it a better way to express their ideas.

Problem-Solving

Animation forces kids to consider the limitations of their materials, evaluate strategies for creating different visual effects, and plan ahead to achieve them. Animation requires planning and consideration for many aspects at once, and can improve both their technical and creative problem-solving skills like few other activities. If math isn’t striking a chord with your kid, try animation instead.

Collaboration

Animation is a great group project. It gives kids practice in agreeing on a goal, dividing up tasks, and communicating with each other to offer feedback, support, and insight.

This point might be more relevant to teaching animation in a classroom environment, but it applies to a group of siblings, or friends coming over. Try to get them to work on animating a scene together and you’d be surprised with what they can achieve as a team.

Technical Skills

Animation projects give the child experience interacting with technical tools, like cameras and editing software. It also gives them experience with audio/visual presentation in general. these skills are becoming more and more important in today’s YouTube/Instagram world and could help push your kids up the technical ladder.

So how do you introduce your kid to animation if you have no animation experience?

Great question! As you might have guessed – we already solved that problem by creating a MASSIVE course aimed at parents and teachers, and it will show you everything you need to know to teach your kids about animation.

It includes project files, print-outs, assignments, projects, and so much more!

And the best part is that we’ll include all the information for you to be able to talk about animation in a professional way, without the need to animate anything yourself. We’ll give you the theory, step by step, and you can take each lesson at a time and teach it to your student, without worrying about learning the entire art-form at once.

This isn’t for everyone

I know not every parent wants/can take the time and effort to get into a topic like animation and teach it to their kids, but if you are looking for a fun family activity that also has AMAZING benefits (both mental and social), I’d be happy to be your guide.

You asked for it

I keep getting emails from parents and teachers who ask me which of our courses they should get, or how can they teach their kids animation. I always referred them to our Animation Foundations course, or one of the software courses, but now there’s a solution that is tailor-made for them.

I’m very proud of this course. I believe kids should be exposed to animation from a young age, especially since it’s becoming more and more prominent in the world. More animated movies and TV shows come out than ever, and more jobs are created in the industry.

As a 15 year-old kid making stop-motion videos with my webcam and some clay, I could see how a course like this could affect a kid’s life. I hope you like it.