Dads View

My son absolutely loves cartoons. Cartoon Network and Toon Disney are the home of some of his favorite shows.

So the idea of actually making his own cartoon was too good to be true.

Flip books have a long history in the making of some classic movies like Bambi and Snow White:
The origins of Animation

This is a great activity for a rainy afternoon (yeah, it was pouring outside!) or when you have a few hours with your child and not much to do.

Since I’m not an animator, the idea of drawing dozens of pictures, each slightly different from the other,was a bit too much to consider doing.

SO, I went searching for an easier way. Turns out, some of these sites have prepared flip books you can print out :

Printable Flip book of a Kangaroo Astronaut

Coco the clown doing back flips

Things you’ll need:

3×5 cards

Glue

Scissors

Pencil (to number the cards)

Patience!

Things they’ll learn making it:

Putting things in order ( there were 27 cards!)

Using scissors (cutting on the lines)

How cartoons are made!

Steps

Number the 3×5 cards in each corner

Go to the website and print the pages

Take turns cutting out each frame

Glue (glue stick is best) each frame to the corner of the 3×5 card (keep track of the order)

When done, have your child work with you to put the 3×5 cards in order. If you have a paper binder clip, use it to hold the cards together.

Gently flip through the cards at a steady pace.

Enjoy the show!

Here is a short video clip of the Kangaroo Astronaut flip book (see link above)
Flipbook

My son was fascinated with the end product and kept asking over and over “Why does it look like a movie Daddy?”

The long answer is “persistence of vision” and it’s a great way to start a short biology lesson about how the eye works:

Persistence of Vision

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 23rd, 2005 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Crafts for Kids. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.