Year 1 Room 6 Students created Calder inspired mobiles

The year ones have been exploring great artists and sculptures. Alexander Calder was a modern abstract artist who created kinetic (moving) art that were christened by a fellow artist as “Mobiles.”

We explored the elements of form, colour and balance and decided to enter the 2007 Fremantle Festival Parade with the theme of “wind”. The mobiles were made out of aluminium wire and holographic card. They were designed to hang or be held in mid-air and catch the breeze. The holographic card was connected to the mobile frames with swivels so that as we walked along South Tce, the wind whizzed the shapes around to create movement and flashes of colour

Calder once said, “To most people who look at a mobile, it’s no more than a series of flat objects that move. To a few though, it may be poetry”

The students loved discovering that poetry.

Starfish PrePrimary and the Seahorse P/1 students

all made fabulous kites.

The kites were in three parts - a body, a long handle and a tail. To make the body the children painted their own designs on to large crcle of paper using edicol dye in a riot of colours. The paper circles were then taped onto a bamboo frame.

The handles were made using plastic piping from ReMIDA, fixed together with sparkly tape and bound with ribbons. The children tied lots of small metal bells all along the handle. The kite bodies and handles were fixed together using  large fishing swivels so that the kites could move freely in the wind. Lastly the children screen printed long strips of fabric to make the tails.

The kites looked and sounded fantastic flying and ringing around the festival parade route. We all had a wonderful time!

The children have revisited their festival experiences in a variety of ways, with photos, video footage and artwork which has been displayed in the classroom. All of the kite have now gone home with their proud designers.

Ink up the board,

make the patterns

Lay out the fabric

gently smooth it down

Carefully 'pull the print'

allow to dry before attaching to the kite to make the tails.