It’s a Paper Sculpture Jungle!

I love to teach Alexander Calder. In second grade, we looked closely into the life of Calder and his humorous personality. His stabile sculptures were a source of inspiration for this project. Prior to this project, one class period was devoted to the “Paper Construction Challenge,” in which students rotated through stations that had a variety of paper sculptures at them (cones, cylinders, spirals, rectangular prisms, etc.). Students were given about 5 minutes at each station to attempt to construct what was in front of them. This was a fun way to get gears churning, and students engaged and ready for the stabile sculptures. After going over how to construct the paper sculptures, and how to use paper tabs to hold pieces together, each student made an abstract sculpture combining constructions.