Jen & Mallory Week 3

Hanging Junk!

Starting each class with sketchbook time allows the students to draw and color as well as explore some of their ideas on paper.  We spent a few minutes looking at some of the works, and one student's sketchbook, Christina, really caught our eye. Her skills in drawing seem far past her age, and her ideas about her drawings were even more impressive.  Her abilities are amazing, and her hot glue gun fascination is also interesting.  She loves hot gluing bottle caps to the mosaic, she is very patient and determined, and focuses a lot on what she is doing.  She is a great example of how important it is to never underestimate a child and his or her abilities.  On the left in Christina's sketchbook is her "Princess Celle," and on the right are her unicorns and other figures.

We began this weeks lesson on hanging junk by showing the students a PowerPoint presentation on ways to reuse old news in new ways.  The way that they transformed toy-like objects into art was via hanging them - a mobile!  We showed them a short video clip of Beach Plastic, where Richard and Judith Lang show their plastic mobile hangings.  We had a variety of objects for the students to choose from, as well as yarn, wire, shoe laces, pipe cleaners and clips for them to attach their objects to their mobiles, which we prepared for them the night before.  We explained to them how they can attach their objects to the mobile, and they got started.  

As they began working within the first five minutes, a hand was raised... and a statement was made by one of the students. "I DON"T KNOW HOW TO TIE A KNOT."  It was the first time we really felt like this was an "OH. NO." moment.  I thought to myself, this is going to crash and burn.  We completely did not think about the fact that many 6 year olds cannot tie their shoes, let alone tie a tight knot with yarn!  We spent the class helping the students tie their objects and putting holes in things that didn't already have a hole for stringing through.  We knew that the students loved the idea of these mobiles, but it was hard for them because many were frustrated because nothing was staying put due to their lack of tying skills!  When they finished their mobiles, one by one they would bring it over to us, when we were still trying to help other students attach and tie, and tell us they were finished, so we had to frantically stop helping those that needed help and write names on each mobile and hang them off to the side.  This was very difficult because we needed to continue to try and help tie, but then direct students to other stations when they finished.  Below is a photo of all of their finished mobiles hanging together on a wood piece suspended on top of the cabinets.

 All in all, the mobiles looked great, the students enjoyed the project minus the struggles with attaching objects, and there are several things that we would have done differently and think about for next time:

• SCAFFOLDING:  This was something that was done perfectly for the mosaic, but not for this project.  We should have showed them how to attach objects, and thought about better ways to do so, such as making four strands of objects and then later attaching each strand to the top piece, as well as focused more on balance, by hanging the main piece so that they could attach objects as it was hanging, rather than trying to do it on a flat surface, then lifting it up and realizing it was unbalanced. 
• DEMO:  We should have done a demo on how to attach!
• TEACHER EXAMPLE:  Mallory made a beautiful teaching example, but something that we missed was looking at how she made her mobile - NO STRING!  She basically only used wire, which would have worked better for the students considering many of them could not tie.  We did not even think about this when the example was being made.  We thought - "String will be good for 6 and 7 year olds, wire may be too dangerous." Next time we will be much more aware of how we are actually making the examples, so that we know what works for us and the students.