3-D Perspective

When the children come to the art studio during morning play, they create their art with a wide variety of materials. All of the materials in the art studio are available. In the afternoon, however, we set out certain materials and invite children to come to the art studio with a purpose. This is the afternoon activity the children visit for the week. Their thinking and their expertise deepens and grows all week long! 

This week, small cardboard tubes, pine cones and glue were set out and the children were invited to use them thinking about 'tall and wide' and 'up and out'. They were told, "These are words we use when we think about 3-D. 3-D means 3 dimensional. 3 dimensional is NOT FLAT like a picture or a drawing!"

Some of the children wanted their structures to be very tall. The tubes were stacked... and fell... and re-stacked. The children experimented with liquid glue and glue sticks.

Kylynn decided that she needed something else to help the tubes stay stacked. She went to the shelf for a button and put it on top of her tube and stacked her next tube on top. Some of the children began to use Kylynn's idea. Buttons were added to the materials.

Other children began to add popsicle sticks to their structures. Some made 'bridges'. Popsicle sticks were added to the materials.

One of the children began to use lids to make their structure 'bigger'. Lids were glued on the flat side, and the round side. They needed to 'balance' their lids, like they needed to 'balance' the tubes and buttons on top of each other. Lids were added to the materials.

It was so interesting to see how differently children created their structures! Day after day, they were added to and revised. The children noticed how much more 'stable' the structures were and how much easier they could add to the structures once the glue had dried. 

Chance tried several ways to make his tall tower of tubes stand up. He put popsicle sticks inside the tower. It fell over. He put liquid glue at the base. It fell over. He stopped to think. He tried to fill the tower with glue. It fell over. He used a glue stick. He adjusted the cardboard tubes to balance them. The tower stood up!

At the end of the week, the structures were displayed and we all did a 'gallery walk'. We observed the many different 3 dimensional structures. We thought about words like 'balance, tall, wide, surround, plan, stable, high, low, cylinder, over, under, top and bottom'.

When we talked about the structures after our gallery walk, ideas and conversation was so lively!  Children were excited to talk about the many structures. Most exciting of all were the many suggestions of materials that could be added to the art studio to make GIGANTIC 3 dimensional structures.