Thursday, September 26, 2013

#DotDay Mobile

For a collaborative International Dot Day project, every student in my primary school made a dot which was combined into a big mobile! Somehow we managed to fit almost 500 dots on the mobile, glued back to back with yarn in the middle.
Prior to our Dot Day celebrations, I made the structure of the mobile. It's a bit hard to see with no dots on it, but the structure was made from 3 wire hangers stuck together to form 6 points. I hung a piece of yarn on each corner, one in the middle, and one half way between each corner and the middle for a total of 13 strands. Of course the yarn strands were arranged in color wheel order in each ring. That's how I roll.
I had precut squares of white drawing paper and the students started with that to make their dots. Some used the round-off-the-corner method, and others traced cups or other circular objects to start with. It was a good chance to review rotating the paper instead of turning the scissors when cutting round things. I was super impressed with this kitten dot, cut out by a Kindergartener with absolutely no assistance. A lot of older kids can't cut that well! I had to brag to his teacher about it. :)
When students finished their dots, they left them on a stool near the mobile so that I could find two similar sized dots to sandwich. Some of the early finishers enjoyed helping match up dots.
When the mobile was finished, I had to figure out where I was going to display the mobile! I was originally thinking that it could hang in the art room but it ended up being way too tall for that. If I had gotten this idea earlier, I would have used a hula hoop to increase the diameter and decrease the height. Luckily, our school librarian was happy to find a place to display the mobile in the library. She was also the first to complete her celebridot- inspired by Eric Carle's "The Very Grouchy Ladybug!"

3 comments:

  1. Your dot day ideas are fantastic. I had never heard of Int Dot day until I saw it on your blog. My brain is now buzzing with ideas for next year. i would love it if you would take the time to have a look at my blog
    http://thebackartroom.global2.vic.edu.au/
    Thanks,
    Shelley

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  2. Thank you so much for posting this! I just completed a similar mobile based on your post and just posted it on my blog: www.artteachart.blogspot.com - I mentioned your post and provided a link to it. I'd love for you to check out what we did in our class! Thanks again for the inspiration!!

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