It is not unusual for students to watch movies during class, but at Mount Mahogany Elementary the fourth grade classes experienced Hollywood from the other side of the camera as they made their own stop motion movies during computer class.

A stop motion movie is similar to an animated feature but instead of using drawings for each frame, real objects are slowly moved and a series of still pictures are strung together to create the action.

Lisa Giles, the computer specialist at Mount Mahogany, organized the project for fourth grade students to sharpen their computer skills in a fun and entertaining way.

First, students chose which objects would appear in their movies. Alphabet blocks, toys and shoes were all stars as students manipulated their objects to take the still pictures. Next, students input the photos onto computers, then imported sound effects, designed a title screen and added credits.

"That made it a multimedia project because we used different types of media," Giles said.

Despite the fact that the movies were only a few seconds long, it took eight weeks of effort to create the short films. Giles said that each movie used 10 pictures per second, and movies had from 40 to 200 pictures each depending on the topic and the intricacy of the action.

Because students are only in computer class for a half hour each week, Giles said it was difficult to coordinate the different phases of the project.

For example, the class could only use the digital cameras for one day, so all the pictures had to be taken in one class session.

"The biggest challenge was the time constraints we had," she said.

The end result was well worth it, however. The 118 fourth grade students worked in groups to produce a total of 40 movies. Topics included alphabet blocks rearranging themselves to spell students' names, empty shoes walking across the carpet and toy frogs playing leapfrog by themselves.

Students presented their movies at a red carpet premier party on May 11, complete with popcorn and cheers for the new directors.

The movie projects have helped students practice different computer skills as well as keyboarding, Internet safety and other curriculum items they have been focusing on throughout the year.

Giles said that teaching students proper computer skills is important because they will experiment with computers with or without appropriate guidance.

"If we don't teach them, they'll learn it on their own," she said. "I'd rather than teach them correctly than have them learn incorrectly."

The benefit of working on the stop motion movies has not only been learning new skills, but also seeing a big project through to a final result. Giles was initially concerned that students may not want to work on the projects for so long, but she said their excitement never waned, making this a project well worth repeating.

"Their enthusiasm has been very contagious," Giles said. "I'm looking forward to putting stop motion movies on the schedule next year already."