Animation; an introduction in maya

Today we had our first session in maya. Unfortunately my knowledge of maya is rather limited therefore i have decided that it's not the right program to use for this brief as my idea for this animation would be best created using either stop motion or by creating it in photoshop and image ready. However i do plan to spend my spare time learning some simple aspects of maya as i understand that it is a vital program to be learned in terms of 3D animation.