Stop, Click & Roll! Amazing Animation Kits for Kids

Help your mini-movie mogul get animated with seven simple stop-motion kits. All that's left to do is call "Action!"

By Kipp Jarecke-Cheng April 18, 2016

With blockbuster hits like Frozen and Inside Out, there are few movie genres that enchant and inspire kids more than animated films. Using a steady hand, a bit of patience, and plenty of imagination, junior animaniacs can create stunning moving pictures of their own, thanks to a crop of kid-friendly stop-motion animation apps and studio kits. Click through our animated album to zoom in on some of the coolest products to help your mini-movie moguls shoot their own stop-motion masterpieces!

Stop Motion Studio

You don’t need fancy software or even a computer to create beautiful stop-motion animated movies. Stop Motion Studio is an easy-to-use, surprisingly powerful app that lets movie makers create fantastic stop-motion shorts directly on their smartphones or tablets. The basic app is free, but in-app purchases offer additional tools such as more themes and backgrounds. A built-in image editor allows junior film editors to colorize or paint over frames, while a sound mixer allows for music and audio effects. Best of all, stop-motion clips can be exported as animated GIFs, formatted in cinema mode or square mode for sharing on Facebook or Instagram, and published directly to YouTube or Dropbox.

For ages 8 & up.

Available on iTunes and Google Play, free.

What are your favorite movie-maker and animation apps? Tell us in the comments below!

—Kipp Jarecke-Cheng