Making Mobiles

I came across this mobile, inspired by Moonrise Kingdom, by LA-based artist Kim Baise.  I love the simplicity of it, and how inspired it is.  It got me looking for some more mobile-making inspiration.

Above, an origami mobile from Tiny Happy

Some guidance for creating balance without symmetry in mobiles, from Perpetual Mobiles.

Artist Marco Mahler shares his advice for making mobiles, exploring the intricacies of balance.

Artists Carl and Evelina Kleiner create food-based kinetic sculptures inspired by artist Alexander Calder.  I'm especially fond of the eggs!

In Context

Mobiles, or Kinetic Sculptures, embed so many different elements into one creative, open-ended project:  math, science, imagination, and more.  The first mobile in this post has a "topic", and I can't help but think about how children might be able to make mobiles based on a story, or any topic for that matter, showing how different elements are related through how the mobile is organized.  I have been working in elementary schools lately, and children are often encouraged to use visual organizers to organize their thinking and ideas.  The idea of balance in a mobile is a lovely example of visually organized information!

Have you made mobiles with children?  How did you introduce it?  What inspired you?

Lego Vines

via Mark Weaver on Vine

"Lego Vines is a stop motion art project using Lego bricks and Vine." 

Videos like this can be a prompt for conversation and exploration with children.  This particular video could prompt a group of lego lovers to dig deeper into that medium.  There are also interesting possibilities here to talk about pattern, color, and sound!

In Context

• Show this, or one of the other Lego Vines, to children.  What comes up in conversation?  What do they wonder about?  
• Find or make a flip book, and explore those with children, encouraging them to make their own.
• Bring your research with them all the way back to the phenakistoscope!  Think about your local resources - is there a film museum that might have one?  Make one as a class!
• Think about claymation, and share a few simple clips as examples.  If the children are used to using digital cameras, work together on an example and then set up a camera, tripod, and clay for them to create their own.
• Are the legos an engaging part of this exploration for them?  Set up the tripod and camera with the focus on lego building.  Encourage children to create a storyboard and plan out their film.
• Think about other blocks to use in a Vine or stop motion animation film.  Can the children plan one with unit blocks?
• Use people in stop motion animation!

I'll be sharing more about Vine as part of the class blog series in the coming weeks.  Do you have any more ideas about how you might extend this?

Snowflakes / Patterns

Internet wanderings somehow brought me to Snow-flakes: A chapter from the book of nature on Open Library.  I've only shared a few of the beautiful images from the book, but you can find much more at the link above.

These snowflakes have me thinking about wintery weather, which we are missing here in the top left corner of the country; but I'm also thinking about patterning.  We are naturally drawn to pattern and symmetry, and that is especially true for children.  Learning about pattern comes naturally - we can point out patterns in our everyday life for children, and that gives them the opportunity to find their own patterns.  Patterns can be as simple as waking up and walking straight to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee each morning, and as complex as a life cycle.

Doing a project around the topic of patterns is incredibly open-ended, and if you have wonderful things to share with children, they will find wonderfully original patterns to share with you!

In Context:

• Look at snowflakes under a microscope.  Can you really see the patterns?  Draw what you see!
• Take a walk and try to find other things that are patterns.  Maybe all of the rocks by the creek are smooth, or all of the evergreen trees have a pinecone hanging from them.  Be open to all kinds of patterns!
• Think about your favorite songs as a group, or as a family.  Are those patterns?  How?
• Make up a sound pattern.
• Make up a painting pattern.
• Take a look at these watercolor negative prints.  Can you make negative prints that are inspired by the images from the snowflake book?
• What else has symmetry like a snowflake?
• Make Rorschach inkblot tests by folding wet paintings in half.
• Take a look at this film from the Canadian Film Board, and have some quilts on hand.  What do the children notice?

We take in patterns around us with all of our senses, so don't stop with this list!  

And please, share any other thoughts you have about using these snowflake images in context with young children!

Mapping Sounds

One of the projects of the Common Senses exhibit at MoMA last year was an interactive sound map, which anyone can contribute to.  According to the Inside/Out blog,

"Sound and space are closely linked. Our ears help define our surroundings by picking up on spatial clues in reflected sound waves. This innate ability to situate ourselves in our soundscape was probably more overtly useful in the days before electricity, when we had to rely on our ears to alert us to danger our eyes could not detect. There is, however, a movement in the visually impaired community to cultivate this ability to help them navigate in the world and participate in sports, and artists such as Janet Cardiff use sound and spatiality as integral parts of their work."

This map made me think of the maps that I have made with children over the years - or, more often, the maps that they have initiated.  From roads made of blocks to more traditional maps that use the visual to show place, children's representation of something as abstract as space is always worth stepping back and observing.

The way that we express our understanding of space is often dictated by traditional maps, but thinking about conceptual maps opens up a whole new way to think about the senses.  A few weeks ago, I listened to an episode of This American Life about mapping that I highly recommend - have a listen and be inspired to explore mapping with children!

In Context:

• Use an mp3 Recorder to explore your home or community.  Upload your sounds to the MoMA sound map, or create your own version of a sound map, translating the sounds into visual images.
• Go for a community walk, and pay attention to what is most salient to the children on that walk: are they noticing sounds? Smells?  Textures?  Start with the visual, and create a different map each time you go for a walk.
• Encourage parents to download a recording app like AudioBoo for their iPhone or Android and let their child choose sounds to record in their world, and create a way to share those with the classroom and school community.
• Create a mapping prompt in the classroom, allowing children to use maps in their art: drawing on maps, or making landmarks out of clay, for example.
• Add large maps to the areas where children do their dramatic play, either hanging them on wall or having folded maps available.
• Provide masking tape that children can use to create roadways on the floor.
• Explore your community on Google Earth.

Introducing "In Context"

When I began blogging in 2008, everything that I found interesting, I would share on my blog.  Much of my sharing had to do with what was happening in my classroom, rather than what was happening in other places.  The internet has become a much more social place since then.

Now, almost five years later, I have a myriad of ways to share:  facebook and pinterest currently get more of my attention than this space.  I have become a bit disenchanted with the shift to more surface-level sharing that has happened since I began using this space, and I hope that In Context will help to change that.

In Context strives to take inspiring information and propose ways that it might be used in your context.  Perhaps you are an early childhood educator or administrator; a homeschooling or unschooling parent; or maybe a nanny.  No matter what your work with young children involves, brainstorming is priceless.  I miss the days of sitting in Wednesday afternoon meetings with colleagues, bouncing ideas off of each other.  An image of a child or a work of art or a sound clip can start the creative juices flowing, and In Context is designed to get your wheels turning.

When I share information about something happening in another classroom, an article about child development, or a photo, I will make a short list of ways to use the information in context, and you will be able to better extend the information I've shared.  I encourage you to use the comments to extend the conversation even further, sharing additional ideas and resources.

Come back tomorrow for the first post featuring In Context!