Taking animation to the next level

For both term 1 & 2, I have been trying to find ways to encourage collaboration within my class.  So far the best way I have been able to achieve this is in reading groups.  The Maihi reading group absolutely loved Maui and the Sun and asked if they could create an animation from the story.  I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for them to work together and take their animation to the next level.

It was manageable because it was such a small group (only 4), had it been a bigger group I would have had to split them into 2 groups.  They had to rewrite the story in their own words, draw up a storyboard, choose the most appropriate music and using audacity we recorded them telling the story and edited the whole animation.

What was easy?
Hooking them into the activity, they were keen and loved the idea of creating it, at first they weren't able to visualise the finished product as I had no examples to show them, but as we worked on it together, the group grew more excited the more they saw the animation unfold.

What was hard?

There was a lot of scaffolding that had to happen during the process, I was able to use my teacher aide but on the digital side, there was a lot of explicit teaching that had to be done. I left notes and comments, and continuously gave feedback and feedforward which they appreciated.

Where do I go next?
Now that I have a student example as above - I will use this for our narrative unit, I do have some idea on what to anticipate and what would need to be scaffolded and taught.  Looking forward to rolling this out again.