To understand the Animating Kids recipes, you need to know they are not all alike. The instructions change from lesson to lesson depending on the difficulty of the idea being demonstrated.

Recipe 1 - Set Up

Setting up a mobile device is easy, especially if you are resourceful! This video shows 8 different ways to get a mobile device in position to start animating.

Recipe 2 - Frames Per Second

You will learn how many pictures to take in order to create basic animation effects.

Recipe 3 - Sound Design

Use your mouth for the fastest and easiest SFX. Most stop motion apps have a sound button. You will learn to look for this button.

Recipe 4 - Spacing is Speed

You will learn how to animate fast, medium, or slow motion speeds. Spacing determines speed.

Recipe 5 - Speeding Up and Slowing Down

The transition from fast to slow, or from slow to fast is everywhere in animation.

Recipe 6 - Bouncing Ball

Impacts and showing motion along a curve is common in all animation. The bouncing ball is a classic in animation instruction.

Recipe 7 - Squash

An animator must have the idea of squash as part of the vocabulary and skill of animation.

Recipe 8 - Stretch

Understanding this basic concept will be one of the main reasons your characters and animations will seem real to your audience.

Recipe 9 - Bouncing Ball with Squash and Stretch

This exercise combines two ideas happening at the same time. Moving the ball along a curve with speed-up and slow-down spacing, while at the same time squashing and stretching requires concentration.

Recipe 10 - Wind-up

Winding up before any action is a great way to take your animation skills to the next level. Almost all motion has some form of wind-up or follow-through, and sometimes both!

Recipe 11 - Follow-through

Follow-through is important because it shows what effects happen after the basic animation. You will learn to watch for opportunities to show a follow-through.

Recipe 12 - Squash & Stretch / Wind-Up and Follow-Through

Knowing and using wind-up and follow-through put you on the road to animation mastery.

Recipe 13 - Throw

Wind-up and follow-through are explored as a part of creating a throwing motion. An animator can make almost any motion more interesting by adding some wind-up and follow-through.

Recipe 14 - Sneeze

You will use the windup, speeding-up, follow-through and slowing-down. The sneeze recipe is a great example of keeping track of three or four things at the same time.

Recipe 15 - Shake

Adding shakes whenever you see the opportunity means you are starting to think like an animator. You want to have an impact on the emotions of your audience. So it’s time to get shaking.

Recipe 16 - Quiver

You will also use a quiver when a hammer rings a bell, when a ball hits a head, when someone steps on a rake, when an arrow hits a target, etc.

Recipe 17 - Toggle

A quick and easy technique for creating flickering flames, waterfalls, rocket fuel, electric shocks, and many other effects. A new tool in the arsenal of the animator's vocabulary and skill.

Recipe 18 - Loops & Cycles

A basic concept used by all the animation greats. Loops & Cycles save an animator time and create a simple solution for running, walking, flying, bouncing balls, and many other repetitive animation bits. A fundamental formula and skill for any animation.

Recipe 19 - Loops on a Path: Flying a Bat

Running a cycle or a loop along a path requires the animator to manage two or three poses and positions at once. Keeping track of spacing while posing a character from frame to frame is foundational for all animation.

Recipe 20 - Inbetween Blur

You will learn how to create the illusion of speeds which are too fast for 15fps to capture.

Recipe 21 - Walk & Run

In traditional animation, making a character walk is one of the most difficult tasks. We simplify the whole process by using a zig-zag pattern.

Recipe 22 - Swing

The swing pattern combines the ideas of speeding up and slowing down with a fulcrum. One end of a swing pattern is locked down, while the other swings to and fro. This creates the illusion of momentum and weight on the swinging end of a rope, a swing set, or a pendulum.

Recipe 23a - Swing with Overlapping Action

Overlapping Action is an animation basic concept and unique vocabulary. The idea is that momentum and movement create not just one basic action, but many sub-actions too. In this lesson we add overlapping action to the swing formula. Our little clay guy lags behind the swing motion just as Tarzan's body might overlap and lag behind the main motion of the vine.

Recipe 23b - Swing With Overlapping Action

Advancing the idea of overlapping action, this secret recipe adds two poses for further explanation of this very important animation concept.

Recipe 24 - Blinking is Thinking

In animation we look for ways to create the illusion of life. When you master the art of blinking, along with facial expressions and talking formulas, your characters will look like they are thinking.

Recipe 25 - Talking

What your characters say may be the most important part of animated storytelling. This secret recipe is the most powerful tool we teach.

Recipe 26 - Review

A basic project which employs animation's basic ideas.

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