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This piece was made for me by my 4th grade son. He enjoyed this project and liked writing the poem about me (to read it, scroll down). |
I linked this project to nature, of course, and Alexander Calder, since the wire portion reminded me of his stabiles and standing mobiles. Check out this one at his website, www.calder.org:
Here are the directions for the version we did…Enjoy!
Rockin' Stabiles
Supplies Needed:
- A rock the size of a softball, or so…
- Acrylic paints
- Paint brushes, water buckets, paper plate palettes, newspaper
- Medium gauge copper wire (I think ours was 24 gauge, but check to see what works for you)
- Wire cutters
- Poem/Thank You Note Worksheets
- Pencils
- Plain white index cards (we used 4"x 6" ones)
- Fine point Sharpies
- Pretty colored paper or card stock (optional)
- Glue Sticks
- Scissors
- Craft foam scraps
- Hole punch
Directions:
1. Select a nice rock for your base, brush it off and paint it with the acrylics. Let dry.
2. Choose a poem/thank you note worksheet to work with. I downloaded the Diamante template from www.ReadWriteThink.org for the students to use. I encouraged the older students (4th grade) to use those. For the younger students and ones who struggle with writing, I let them write a thank you note to their mom. I provided a template for the thank you note as well, to prompt them a bit. As a mom, either writing is appreciated!
My son wrote this about me:
Brandie
Beautiful, Awesome
Cleaning, Cooking, Vacuuming
You are very awesome.
Resting, Eating, Playing
Cool, Calm
Mom
3. Once the students were done their writing, I proofread them (although I let some of the creative spelling go sometimes because it was just so darn cute!). Transfer the writing to the index cards using Sharpies to make a nice-looking final copy.
4. Glue the index cards with the final writing onto a pretty piece of paper to create a nice border around the poem.
5. Cut a piece of wire to about 36" long. Wrap the wire around the rock a couple of times and twist the ends. One end can be a spiral to hold the poem you've written, the other end can curl out and around like the arm on Calder's work. You can cut smaller pieces of wire to make a mobile-type structure at this time, but I had students cut a shape from craft foam, punch a hole in it, and hang the shape from the arm.
6. Place the poem/thank you note in the spiral portion of the stabile (you may need to secure the note on the back with a bit of tape).
Enjoy!
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My other son, who is in first grade, was finding it hard to write that day, so he painted the rock and created the wire heart sculpture instead. |
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