Alexander Calder 1st grade sculptures

 Alexander Calder 1st grade sculptures 

My 1st graders absolutely loved this lesson!!! 

We looked at his many sculptures and mobiles on line and watched a video of him performing his famous "circus" on YouTube. 

Untitled, 1937 

Tate Museum of Art, Britain 

I also summarized the book " Sandy's Circus" by Tanya Lee Stone. 

My first graders picked four pipe cleaners and wrapped one around three of them to form a tree shape. 

They were allowed to add beads to the "branches" and lastly they stuck it in a pack of model magic. 

Some of the students added markers to the "Model Magic" which made a neat color combination! 

When the model magic was hard they were allowed to take them home. I also sent home a little note with them explaining the art project to the parents. Many of my kiddos couldn't remember the name "Alexander Calder"! 

Wayne Thiebaud model magic lollipops kindergarten art lesson

Wayne Thiebaud model magic lollipops

I've seen this lesson many times on the internet. I actually used http://artinklings.blogspot.com/2015/12/wayne-thiebaud-inspired-lollipops.html idea for  my kindergarteners. 

I showed the students part of the interview of Wayne Thiebaud from CBS morning on Youtube. I think it actually gets the students excited about the project if you can find photographs and videos of the artists working. 

I then demonstrated how to roll the model magic into a ball and then make it into a coil.

 After the students rolled the ball into a coil they swirled it around to make the lollipop. 

I then pushed a craft stick into their lollipop. From my experience, if I had them push it in, they would become frustrated and ruin their lollipop. This project only took about twenty minutes for the lecture and the art making time. 

On the next art day, students painted their lollipops with watercolors.