6th Choice- Cardboard Construction

My first post about 6th graders' choice project explained how it worked and sort of focused on collaborative projects. I had a hard time dividing all my photos up into project categories. I think about 3/4 of the construction projects were also collaborative. Some students built their own structures but helped each other when extra hands were needed to glue. Some students built their structures together from the planning to the painting. You might notice from the photos that there are lots of students working on the floor. I don't have my classroom set up in stations (yet) but have no fear, the students made their own! I had a couple tables scooted closer to outlets for glue guns but when those spaces were full, others solved the problem and found a spot.

*Note to self- invest in some extension cords or power strips to make hot glue guns easier to use!

I had a hunch that cardboard would be a popular material when my 6th graders designed their own lessons for their final elementary art project, but I had no idea just how in demand it would be! Thankfully, I had a lot of big sheets leftover from our bottle cap artwork and after our social worker saw we were using cardboard, she started saving inserts from the BackSnack program for us. I've already got quite the stash started for next school year. I have a small box of box cutters but I had never let the students use them before. That changed with this project. If students didn't have experience using a box cutter or had a complicated cut to make, I helped them. However, I found that most of the students wanting to build with cardboard had already used box cutters at home, or were at least comfortable using the cutters after I reminded them to keep their appendages out of the way. I also gave lots of reminders about putting a beat up piece of cardboard underneath to protect the tables and the floor. Another popular construction material was Art Straws. I inherited a couple of big boxes and we finally had a chance to use them.

I think there is a future engineer in this student! His bridge design was super precise, though it looks simple. Craftsmanship was also really nice.

 Here are a couple partner construction projects in the works. One group is working on table top while another works on the floor. You can also see the current organization method for cardboard scraps... I'm trying to come up with a good method for next year.

This student was the lone girl to choose construction. Right away, she had a clear idea which she described to me as wavy buildings with bright colors. She was probably the most competent with a box cutter. I like how she included negative space in her design and thought to cover the raw corrugated edges of her structure with ric-rac and yarn around the edge of the base. It reminds me a bit of Dr.Seuss architecture!

This last project was made by a student who I didn't know really had an interest in art before he started building. He had never caused any trouble, just didn't seem that into it. Once he started working on this project, I couldn't keep him out of my room! I'm only at my intermediate school two days a week but I think he spent every recess and extra block of time in the art room on those days. It started as one house, then he added the second, attached them to the base, added trees, and on the last work day he made the jeep that's a little hard to see in the center of the photo.

Construction gave the students tons of opportunities to design and solve problems and use visual-spatial skills. They had to think in three dimensions, which is something my students don't usually get much experience with due to storage problems. I think that TAB would help correct this problem. It's a lot easier to store 25 3D structures at a time than storing 130! I'll still have to think about what to do when more than one grade is allowed to explore 3D at once because that could put the project numbers back over 100. I'm hoping to get some open shelving to put above my built-in storage and may be able to use some of the metal shelves in my closet when supplies stored there get moved out into the regular work space.

Cardboard Construction and Water Painting

I'm sure we've all read a lot about using stations or centers in the Art room.  I don't use them regularly, but I do utilize them at least a few times a year.  I used stations last week with some of my 3rd grade students.  I wanted the students to type artist statements for their first projects into Artsonia so while one student at a time was doing that, the others were rotating to different stations.  I wanted to come up with stations that did not involve drawing, just for something different.  One, geometric shape tile pictures, I had used before but I tried a couple new things.  I had 4 stations total and the groups rotated to each during the class period.  They ended up with about 6-7 minutes at each station.

1. Water painting on the chalkboard!  I read about letting Kinders paint with water on sidewalks at the beginning of the school year and that idea stuck with me. (I first read about it on B Art Z but I think the original idea came from Hands Head n Heart)  One day I was trying to explain to some students how to turn their brush to cover a wider area and it popped into my head to show them with water on the chalkboard.  I guess this is one time I prefer it to a whiteboard.  For this rotation, I just put styrofoam cups with a little bit of water in them and big brushes on the chalkboard tray and let the students paint lines with water.  I didn't tell them what to paint, just let them explore and be amazed at their temporary paintings.  It worked pretty well besides when a couple students decided to use the brushes to fling water instead of "painting" with it.  We just wiped with paper towels to speed dry time for the next group.

2. Building with recycled materials.  This was so obvious that I can't believe I never did it before!  I save all my paper towel tubes.  I like to use recycled materials for projects, I just have to have over 100 of anything before I have enough for each student to do a lesson.  I pulled out some paper towel tubes, cardboard pieces, plastic trays that someone gave me, and the little "ladders" I saved from old watercolor trays.  I told the students when they were at that table, they just had to build something from the materials working together with their group.  I did not set a specific challenge.  Some used it to create architectural designs, some decided to see how tall of a tower they could build.  I did put a stop to the tall tower thing temporarily when students started to climb on top of the tables to reach higher.  Honestly, they were being careful and I think it would have been pretty safe (my brother and I were always doing stuff like that when we were younger) but I figured since we were at school and I don't want to get in trouble, they could only build towers as tall as they could reach from the floor.  It was cool to see them learn about balance and figure out how to make the structures more sturdy.  The students asked when they could do it again!  There was definitely lots of critical thinking and problem solving happening!

I found a big tub of blocks so one other station was individual building.  This student wanted me to take a picture of her tower, too.

I have plans for other non-drawing (not that I don't love drawing) stations but I have yet to test them out.  I promise to share the results after I do test them with students.