Last year's 4th graders started this grandiose project that was inspired by Dale Chihuly. They finished it this year with the help of some of the other grades making this truly a collaborative work! Chihuly is a famous glass sculpture artist whose work can even be seen at Frederick Meijer Gardens! We took water bottles (also known as junk!), colored them with permanent marker in either warm or cool colors and then cut them into spirals. After each was cut, kids strung like colors on a string and then tied and taped the strings, assembling them onto our large black pole. When the sunlight comes through the window, it is truly breathtaking!
I want to attempt one of these in the future and I'm curious...how did you cut these safely? Did they just go at them with scissors or did you let them use utility knives?
ReplyDeleteAll they did was cut with large adult scissors. It was not an issue for 4th graders. They could totally do it themselves (with very few exceptions who needed me to start it for them...) Mostly, even younger kids could cut through standard water bottles. I encourage you to try it. Kids absolutely are so proud of their work!
DeleteLove this- simply magnificent!
ReplyDeleteThank you! I love i too! :)
ReplyDeleteI would love to do this with my students. Do you have any more detailed pictures of how you assembled this? How many students did you have working on this?
ReplyDeleteSo sorry that I don't have any more photos. We had a whole grade work on it. Some kids assembling, most coloring and cutting the bottles. Also, I let other grades work on it if they were finished with their grade level project. Hope this helps! :)
DeleteWe found like a huge tube and strung a rope through it to hang it from the ceiling. Then the mouths of the water bottles were strung through string (maybe about 5 per sting?) then that was tied to the black colored large tube. After the string was tied, we put black masking tape over the string to hold it on. (had to color the tape).
DeleteLove this! We want to do this for our stairwell. How heavy is this? Did you need extra ceiling support? Approximately how many bottles did you use? Thank you very much. Kristy, Doak Elementary art teacher
ReplyDeleteHello Kristy! So happy to hear that you are excited about it. It was not heavy at all and we didn't need any extra support. So sorry but I don't have any idea how many bottles were collected..... A TON! :) Good luck!
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