You are probably going to be hearing a lot about Genius Hour this year. I wanted to share with you the beginnings of my Genius Hour project. Now, you’re probably saying, “Wait. What? Teachers are doing projects too?”

That’s right. Even though I am the teacher, I am also a learner who is passionate about learning new things and growing in my knowledge and skills. So, as the students know, I have always loved lego and with all the new Star Wars and Lord of the Rings sets coming out, my wife has kindly purchased sets for me at various times (you can see some samples in the classroom!). My son also loves lego and we will often spend hours playing together with the pieces. So, over the past couple of weeks, I had the big castle set down (much to the fascination of my son). I have, for the longest time, wanted to make a lego stop-motion movie. So, I decided to learn how to make one with a couple of apps I had found.

Well, it’s actually a lot harder than I thought! I took about 500 pictures, moving the pieces a little at a time but quickly realized that I should have a tripod to keep the camera steady as the final movie was a little jerky. Then, once I had the video complete, I realized that adding the audio posed a whole other issue. I had written my script but was only about a paragraph into it when the movie finished. So I had to go back and pause pictures to allow for text to be added.

Moving forward, I am going to look at adding a green screen, getting a tripod and doing more with audio to make the next chapter even better!

Anyway, I added my video below. It is extremely cheesy so be forewarned! 🙂