Animation 'breathes life into something that wouldn't normally move'. This could be a drawing, a puppet or an object - even a brick can be brought to life.
Animation is created when you film one still image of your subject, change it a bit, film another still image, change it again and so on until you build up a sequence of still images. And when it's played back, it appears to move.
In a busy classroom the amount of space used can be quite small, so groups could continue animating during a normal lesson.
Although animation takes time and patience, there are plenty of ways to speed up the process, so you can fast forward to the fun part: watching your work back!
Animating in the classroom doesn't have to be with plasticine models - cutout animation is by far the easiest technique to start on
There are five main types of animation, and probably infinite subsets of these:
One of the quickest and easiest ways of creating animation
Plasticine animation and a whole lot more
A pretty immediate form of animation, where humans become the puppets.
Classical animation made easy (well as easy as we could)
Information on animation software for education