Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Apple Camp

Oh Apple, I love you.  Why?  FREE CAMP!  That's why!

Every summer the Apple Stores host a series of mini camps for kids - they're really just three days, an hour and half each time, and the parent has to stay.  That's ok!  It is a great summer activity, and actually kind of hard to get into since the classes fill up within a couple of hours of them being posted on the site.

The camp is fabulous not only because it's free, and the kids get free booty like a pair of ear-buds (yes, awesome, right?) and a free thumb drive, but because it's a class about how to use the Garage Band and iMovie apps and setting the kids free to make movies of their own.  It really encourages creativity and exploration.

Day one involved, first of all, some very cute counselors who were great at getting the kids involved and energized.  Bitty especially enjoyed "The Banana Song." (See video below.)  Cap was slightly more reserved and reluctant but did participate minimally, which was all I ask of him when it comes to singing obnoxious camp songs.  Then the kids learned about story boarding, and spent some time thinking of a story line they could make into a movie.  Then they got a basic lesson in Garage Band and composed some pieces of music to use as a soundtrack.

That afternoon we were sent home with instructions to film a movie.  Here's where I need to totally come clean.  I really did my best to let the kids drive the bus but I'm not going to lie - I probably helped out more than I should have.  I promise though, I really truly tried to follow my kids' lead and help make their ideas come to life.  I probably should have just walked away and left it entirely up to them but.....I totally didn't.  We had a great afternoon filming movies.  We had the help of some friends of Bitty and Cap who were very good sports. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  So I guess that can't be a bad thing, right?

Day two we brought in our footage and the kids learned how to use iMovie to edit their movie clips, add music and sound, transitions and titles.  Bitty and I worked on it together quite closely and Cap was completely on his own.  He put together a really fun little movie.

Friday was our viewing party where we got to enjoy all the kids' movies.  I think the kids really felt a sense of accomplishment and I'm hoping I can encourage them to do that again as an activity at home with friends rather than just sitting around vegging out.

Stephen, Ofa, Daniel and Rae




And here are the final projects!





2 comments:

Linda R said...

Those are great!! What a wonderful opportunity.

jefferies said...

Hey friend! Very good to see that you are still blogging! YOu're an inspiration! Happy to see your sweet face and your cute family!