The Voices in the Hall
Joe pushed open the classroom door, grinning. Clusters of kids hunched over iPads, paper scraps littered the floor, scissors migrated like endangered species, and one kid animated while eating Cheetos.
The animations were about seventy percent done. Characters moved, gravity worked—most of the time. Perfection? Absent. But perfection is boring anyway. What mattered was the kids were beginning to own their movies.
Joe clapped. “Congratulations, you’re about to make cinema history. At least in this classroom. Which, let’s face it, is the only history that matters right now. Today we find your voices. Literally.”
Twenty-five pairs of eyes blinked back. Somewhere, a stapler misfired.
“I’ll be pulling groups into the hall,” Joe explained, “to record voice-overs. Remember that dialogue sheet we brainstormed? Full of slang, idioms, and phrases you all found hysterical? That sheet’s been incubating like an egg. And today we crack it.”
A boy whispered, “Scrambled or fried?” Laughter.
“Step one: dig out that sheet. Step two: export your footage into iMovie, in order. Save it. Done.”
He dropped his voice to a grave rumble. “And then… when I call you out into the hall, we record whatever we improvise. On or off the sheet. Because now you know your characters. You’ve lived with them. They’re alive!” He screamed like Dr. Frankenstein.
Gasps. A few flinches. Then Joe, deadpan: “You’re ready to let them speak.”
The kids cracked up.
“So. Who gets to voice which character?”
Silence. A tumbleweed would have rolled by if schools allowed them.
“Okay,” Joe said. “Bowling Ball group—who’s going to be the voice of the bowling ball?”
A girl shot up her hand. “Me! I’ll be the best bowling ball.”
The class erupted.
“That’s not a high bar,” Joe said. “Most bowling balls don’t speak.”
“They do in my head,” she fired back.
“Fair enough. But here’s the deal: if all of you voiced the ball, the audience wouldn’t notice.”
“Yes they would!” she protested.
“Nope. I’ve made a thousand of these films. Nobody can tell. They’re too busy laughing at the bowling ball.”
He spread his arms like a preacher. “So here’s my proposal: four bowling-ball scenes, four voices. Everyone leaves a voice print in the film. Democracy in action.”
The room lit up. Suddenly everyone wanted to voice everyone. Five kids claimed the lead, three volunteered as sound-effect departments, and one asked if they could voice all the trees.
Joe raised a hand. “Relax. We’ll get there. You’ve been making ridiculous noises your whole lives. Now they’re useful.”
He cupped his hands and rattled off a sample: thunder, squeaky hinge, fart. The kids howled.
“Don’t underestimate this,” he said, holding up paper. “Crumpling can be fire, sizzling bacon, or rain. Your brain will believe it. Sound design is just a con.”
“Could it be an alien invasion?” a kid asked.
Joe crumpled dramatically. “Absolutely. Especially if you scream behind it.”
The class obliged, howling alien screeches as Joe shredded the paper.
“Fun fact,” he added. “The sound of lightsabers? George Lucas’s team hit a wrench on a telephone pole wire. And now it’s forever the sound of space swords. That’s what we’re doing—making the ordinary unforgettable.”
One boy produced a perfect horse gallop using only his cheeks. His group instantly named him “Head of Animal Division.”
Joe clapped again. “Bowling Ball group—you’re first. Everyone else, keep animating, review your brainstorms, and be ready.”
He swung the door open like a maître d’. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Bowling Ball awaits.”
The group strutted out, giggling. One whispered, “Do bowling balls have British accents?” Another replied, “Only the fancy ones.”
The Hallway Studio
Out in the hall, Joe set up the iPad like a field recorder. The acoustics were hopeless—hallways are built for echoes, not cinema—but that only made it funnier.
“Okay. Scene one. The bowling ball rolls down the lane, nervous. Who’s up?”
The girl stepped forward, puffed up, and bellowed in a bass rumble: “I am a bowling ball! Fear me!”
Joe nearly dropped the iPad. “Terrifying. Brilliant.”
Next, a boy whispered, “Hi…” like the ball was painfully shy. The group broke down laughing.
“Excellent,” Joe said. “One villain, one introvert. The audience will think it’s nuance.”
Someone sang opera. The hallway echoed with wobbly arias.
Meanwhile, Back in the Classroom
The rest weren’t idle.
“I’ll do laser beams,” one boy sneezed out pew-pews.
“You sound like my grandma,” his partner said.
“Your grandma must be awesome,” came the reply.
At another table, a girl crumpled paper. “Rocket launch.”
Her teammate frowned. “Sounds like potato chips.”
“Then it’s chip-powered,” she said without blinking.
Why This Chaos Works
It looked like pandemonium. It was education at its best: messy, collaborative, unpredictable, loud with laughter.
Kids weren’t just learning film—they were learning to improvise, to experiment, to fail gloriously and recycle the failure into comedy gold.
They learned that squeaks could be thunder, whispers menace, and their squeaky voices could carry a story. They learned creativity isn’t talent, it’s permission, permission to try to be ridiculous, to claim “best bowling ball” without apology.
The Grand Reveal
When the groups played their recordings, the room went silent for three seconds.
It was as if the cutouts had waited all along for their voices. Suddenly they weren’t drawings anymore - they were alive.
Joe had seen this a thousand times. The chaos had worked. The kids were astonished by their own inventiveness. This was what they’d remember, not hours of fiddling with paper arms, but the shock of hearing themselves, ridiculous and brilliant, coming out of characters they created.
Years later, Joe would bump into them—teenagers, college students—and they’d still quote their lines in the same voice they’d used in that echoey hallway. It had grafted itself onto memory.
Straight into their DNA.
Founder of Animating Kids and executive producer of the Animation Chefs webseries, Joe turns filmmaking into a team sport for the content creator generation. Starring his own kids as the “Animation Chefs” with his wife, Holly, as production designer and script supervisor, Animating Kids uses a by kids, for kids cooking-show format to inspire young creators worldwide. Out in the real world, live hands-on workshops with 25,000+ students and educators trained in 20+ countries, Joe equips kids with the storytelling framework and creative vocabulary they’ll need to thrive in the digital age—whether directing a film or prompting an AI. His work proves that visual media literacy is reading and writing with sound and motion—complementing traditional literacy and making media production relevant for the todays kids.
Animating Kids Table of Contents
More Testimonials:
"I am impressed by...these programs, providing young people with the skills to become creative and critical thinkers...this shares my dedication to nurturing the next generation of filmmakers and visual storytellers."— Steven Spielberg - Referencing the work of Joe Summerhays“
"Joe (Animating Kids Founder) has turned the art of movie making for kids into a science.” — Jonathan Demme - Academy Award-Winning Director
“I absolutely love Animating Kids...you have no idea how amazing it is for a span of K-9. I’ve got the whole building covered and my planning was done for me. The kids LOVE the Animation Chefs. Win, win!!”— J. Tuttle - Media Specialist
"When I found Animating Kids it changed everything. Small and not so small humans became masters of sound and motion on any subject via small group PBL dynamics."— Rachel - Tech Coach - Quebec
“Animating Kids has changed everything! Fun, relevant media-making lessons for kids, and total P.D. for my non-film making teachers. A complete solution!!” — Principal - Bronx NY
"Animating Kids really helps focus our students during remote sessions…it keeps them so engaged. Your secret recipes are a life saver." — Marisol - Sacramento Ca
"The kids love the demonstrations and it is P.D. for me as I tee it all up. Animating Kids makes me the coolest educator in their lives!" — Charlotte - London UK
"This is the most important skills-based content for today’s kids. I don't think primary educators get how impactful this approach can be. It respects media content creation as the basic literacy it is for today’s kids. — Monique - White Plains NY
“We went through the entire process (PD workshop) of learning animated filmmaking with our tablets and smartphones. We could barely keep up. In the end we came away exhilarated rather than exhausted.” — Cathy S. - Librarian“
"My head was spinning. It involved: math, writing, science, team building, art, language arts, engineering, improvisation, innovation, acting, etc. Along with another dozen areas I can’t recall. Sneaky comprehensive. Mind blown. Can’t wait to use it in class.” — Marcia - 4th Grade Teacher
“Animation Chefs have created a really inspired program! My test group of (hardened gang members) like to laugh at the videos, and they love the simple clear explanations. They just have a blast...”
— G. Zucker Austin TX
"Thank you SO much for sharing your wealth of information and opening this world to every kid! I first learned about you when my husband introduced our daughter to you. Now I am bringing it into my after school program. I’m so psyched!" — Joy H. Retail After School Specialist
"Kids sign-up for robotics, coding, and stop motion sessions. After taking all three, they rate stop motion as their favorite track BY FAR. Animating Kids is key to our success." — Shane V. Greenmouse Academy