Animation Academy

[StirlingSilver83]

I have a 8 year old that might love this. Do the classes go from park opening til park close or do they close earlier?

 

[tinkerbella16]

This was one of my favorite things we did in November! 21 trips to WDW and we have never done it before. It was short but a lot of fun. Can't wait to do it again in November!

 

[thisismyusername]

We love it and do it every trip. My son was 5 when we first did it, and he loves it. He's now 8 and draws much better, but he was still very proud of his drawings when he was younger! Check out Instagram or Twitter with a hashtag search for completed drawings.

 

[HHMcG]

My kids LOVE this, actually the whole family does.

My DS did it three time on the trip he had just turned 6. It is his favorite thing. But he is an artist and loves drawing. So some 6 year olds might not.
This trip, we just got home from, we took our 3-year old in with us. He and DH did it together and he did fine. Though I think he enjoyed the swinging stool better then the drawing. It was my first time finally getting to draw (in the past I always did something else with our youngest) and I am now hooked. I can't draw but my Pooh Bear was absolutely adorable.

 

[magnusx1]

Check out the "How To Draw" videos on the Disney Parks YouTube page. They are essentially what you'll see in the class, and it's "taught" by the same folks who do the classes. I watched the Baymax one last week, and the woman doing the drawing is someone I've seen in the classes like 3 or 4 times now.

 

[kamik86]

I also love these. I was disappointed in disneyland a few weeks ago as they changed it to "Do you want to draw a snowman?" and were only doing Olaf and Marshmallow back and forth. I like doing different characters (I was so over frozen with the amount in the parks that week!)

If your kids get frustrated easily if they don't think they are good at something that could be a problem. If not they should be fine. My husband is in the first group and he refuses to draw them now. However all the little kids that try and don't get made and scratch out the whole thing with their first mistake (what DH does) all come out with a pretty cool picture. Some characters are easier then others though Mickey is much easier then Tinkerbell was for example. I think Tinkerbell was the hardest one I have done actually!

 

[angierae]

We loved it when we did it in 2012 - we drew Tink. I did the one at Disney Quest, too, but that's computerized and if I recall correctly you had to pay for a print out. (We did Donald, and I paid for mine but DD was not happy with hers and didn't want to pay for it.)

 

[ebonyeyes]

This is always a must do for us and the kids love it! My son first did it when he was 7 and it held his attention just fine. It has definitely grown in popularity.

 

[TXAKDisneyFan]

We've only done it once, but definitely plan on going again. DD was I think 4 years old when we went, and she did fine. She was a little disappointed that her Pluto didn't turn out as well as she would've liked, but it wasn't a big deal and we all had fun.

I don't know if this is standard policy, but our instructor had us vote on which character to draw. (I think he gave us a choice between Pluto (the winner), Daisy, and one other character.)

 

[kaceyo]

I've done Tigger, Donald, Goofy and (my fav) Tink!

 

[appleorchard]

I can tell you, most of your drawings turned out a lot better than mine did lol...We did Elsa last time with my then 6 year old granddaughter and she got really frustrated. Elsa was the toughest character I've personally drawn in doing this a bunch of times and I"m hoping she'll try again on our trip next week--she's 7 now. I had to drag my sister kicking and screaming to do it in January but she really enjoyed it too.

 

[jennab113]

I did it 9 times over two days (it was raining...). I loved it, but ended up drawing Pluto three times. I could teach the process for him now.

 

[jeneric997]

This is also one of our favorite things to do at HS. I'm pretty sure my daughter was only 4 the first time we did it. While it didn't look like much, it was fun. We've kept them all and it's fun to see how the kids have progressed through the years!