BALANCE
My School, My Museum
3rd Grade | SEPTEMBER | Science + Visual Arts
Teachers, staff, and museum educators collaborated to dream up a project that focused on the science concepts of balanced and unbalanced forces (push, pull, gravity, friction) and Alexander Calder's mobiles. To learn more about the program: My School, My Museum, click HERE.
Check out the lesson plan to get a feel for class visit to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
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2019.9_3rd_Lesson Plan--Balance (Science)--website.pdfThe Artworks
Alexander Calder's Trois noirs sur un rouge (Three Blacks over Red)
Alexander Calder's Untitled
"Alexander Calder was born in Pennsylvania, USA in 1898 into an artistic family, his grandfather, his father and his mother were all artists. However, as a kid he was great at Maths, so he decided to study engineering at university. This turned out to be very useful later on when he was inventing his kinetic sculptures. Kinetic is used to describe a type of art that moves, either by air or the use of a motor.
Calder, known to his friends as ‘Sandy’, invented the mobile in 1931 when he decided to create a drawing in the air! "
Information from Tate Kids
In the Classroom I
Amanda Willard leading the class in the experiment.
Students see what happens when one person pushes the ball (this is an unbalanced force and the ball moves).
Students use a ruler to experiment with balancing the ball. They also notice how friction and gravity cause the ball to slow or stop moving.
Students document their findings in their journals.
In the Galleries
Students participated in discussions about the art and artworks in the galleries. Educators moved the conversation to include vocabulary that the students learned in the classroom.
Sally Ball introduced the students to the Calder mobiles. Students discussed the movement, shadows, and theme of the artworks (and so much more)!
Kaye Collier leads a conversation at the Calder mobiles.
Alyssa Wilson facilitated a discussion about Calder's standing mobiles and the importance of color and movement in his artwork.
Students created their own standing mobile and experimented with how added shapes changed the aesthetic of the sculpture and caused movement.
Classroom II
Students were challenged to come up with a theme for a Calder-inspired mobile. In groups of two, they intentionally selected colors to match that theme and began sketching and then building their mobiles. Mobiles were finished in class after the field trip.
