Chicken & Egg

 

Which came first, the chicken or the egg??

This is a two part multimedia project that can be applied to any egg laying animal if you're looking to accompany a curriculum based idea (I've had students make platypus' with this project too!)

The Egg:
You'll need a round balloon, newspaper, flour and water (to make paper mache) for each student.  This can be messy, so just be prepared, cover your tables, and stay calm! Start by blowing up your balloon, I recommend not to full capacity though- they tend to pop if stretched to thin. Then take a piece of masking tape and tape the tail of the balloon to the table your working at, this helps keep it from rolling away on you.  Prep your paper mache area by having a small container to put your mixture in and have all of your newspaper ripped up into strips and ready to go once your hands get all sticky.  Lots of people have very fancy paper mache recipes and techniques, here's a good one if you want to try: RECIPE but I just go with plain ol' flour and water mixed really really well to the consistency of pancake batter.  Once mixed, give each student some in their personal containers.  Dip a strip of newspaper into the paper mache mix, make sure its covered and then wipe off all the excess (I like to pinch it between my first two fingers and slide them down the stripe to pull off any excess), sometimes the paper will get too wet too quickly and it will rip, just put it to the side and try with another one.  It's always good to demo all of this for your students before you start to avoid the emotional melt downs!  Then layer the newspaper strips around your balloon until you have an even cover over the whole surface.  Let them dry completely, (about 24 hours) and repeat the whole process again and then again!  Now that you have a dry and strong egg, cut the egg in half to give it a cracked edge, I did this part for my students using a knife and scissors.  Once cracked open, you should be able to pull out the balloon remnants.  I gave my students  acrylic paints to decorate their eggs, inside and out.  You may want to spray the eggs with a coat of white spray paint to give them a base layer, as the newspaper print will show through on the lighter colored paints. Let the eggs dry while you move onto building the chickens!  HINT: Alternatively, you can do this whole process with plaster gauze instead of paper mache which is simpler, stronger and less messy--but way more expensive a material than flour, water and newspaper.

The Chicken:  These chickens (or whatever egg laying creature you've decided to make!) are made from simple pinch pots.  Start with two equal spheres of clay and make them into pinch pots by pushing your thumb into the center of the sphere and squeezing around the sides until you have a small bowl shape. Do the same to both spheres.  Take your scratching tool (wire tool, fork, comb...) and scratch-to-attach the edges of the bowls.  Then gently push them together and smooth out the seam with your fingers.  This creates the body of your chicken.  Now make one smaller pinch pot and turn it upside down onto the top of your body to create the head.  Scratch-to-attach it on and blend it in well to the shoulders of the chicken.  

Now using some extra clay, create your comb, eyes, beak, wings and legs. For the legs, roll out two coils of clay that are about the same size and thickness, scratch the end of each coil and scratch the body where you want to attach them on, blend them in well with your fingers.  You can push bend the ends up to create feet and then use a knife to cut some toes. The comb can be made by attaching a small coil of clay to the top of the head and then squeezing it thinner; mohawk style.  The beak is a small triangle and the eyes are two spheres with a smaller dot pushed into them. The wings can be two coils of clay that are equal in size and then flattened or two equal slabs of clay in the shape of wings, then scratch-to-attach them on.  Before letting your chicken dry, take a long pointy tool and make a hole from the bottom of the chicken up into the head to allow the trapped air to escape while its firing, if you forget this step--your chicken may blow up in the kiln! : (
Dry, bisque fire, glaze and then glaze fire your chicken.  Display your chicken and egg together!

!!!B CR8IV!!!

Masking Tape People

I created this project when I accidentally ordered too many rolls of masking tape and I didn't know what to do with all of it. I had more than enough for each student to have their own roll, so the masking tape people came to be!  You will need a roll of masking tape, 9 pipe cleaners, a stack of newspaper and scissors for each student in your class to do this project.  This will also happen over the course of several sessions depending on how much detail is added to your projects.  I created my examples ahead of time so that students could see how much detail could be created with just newspaper and tape, it keeps them inspired to push for more details on their own projects.

This is also a simple anatomy project for students, the pipe cleaners are the bones, the newspaper is the muscle and the tape is the skin.  To start making the bone structure, you need 9 pipe cleaner wires (color doesn't matter here).  Loop the first one into a circle for a head that is about 1 1/2" wide, twist the pipe cleaner to itself so that you have a lollipop looking form.  Then bend the pipe cleaner over the loop the opposite direction so that it looks like a basketball and twist the ends together so that becomes the neck.  Take the next pipe cleaner and twist it to the neck of the first one.  Now make the shoulders from the second one by bending it out to one shoulder and then all the way back to the second shoulder and then back to the neck again (basically the shape of a hanger) then twist to connect the end.  Connect the third pipe cleaner to the middle of the shoulders by twisting it around on the end and let it be straight down for a spine then make hip bones the same way we made the shoulders.  Add the forth pipe cleaner for the arm by looping it through the shoulder and folding it in half, then give it a twist at the elbow and wrist joint.  Do the same with the fifth pipe cleaner for the other arm.  Now loop the sixth pipe cleaner through the hip joint and fold it into thirds to make the thigh bones, twist the ends to make it stay.  Do the same for the seventh one to make the other thigh.  The eighth pipe cleaner gets looped through the bottom of the thigh, at the knee and folded in half, give it a twist at the ankle and bend forward to create the foot.  Do the same with the ninth pipe cleaner for the other shin bone and foot.  Check out the photo above if you get confused on this.

Now you need to start tearing and crumbling up newspaper into pieces to start building your muscles. You'll need the tape to hold the newspaper in place so I like to have students tear off (or cut with scissors) a whole bunch of pieces of tape and stick them to the edge of the table so that they can grab them with one hand easily when they need them.  Start with a ball of newspaper that you can fit into the basketball shape of the skull and then tape around to hold it in place.  Then crumble up and large puffy triangle shape to fill out the torso and tape that into place.  Sometimes its good to take strips of newspaper and twist them and wrap them around the legs and arm muscles.  Have students really think about where the bigger muscles are and what shape they are, then use the newspaper to build that shape.  You can continue adding on newspaper muscles until you are satisfied with your person's build.  Remember that the tape will stiffen the overall form, so position your body they way that you'd like to as you continue to tape.  Make sure that all of the surfaces are covered with the tape. Then you can create details like clothes, hair and accessories out of the newspaper and tape.  The newspaper lady at the top has a skirt, shirt, jacket, shoes, a hat, a bag with a book, wallet and water bottle in it and she's reading the paper.  The skydiver has pants, a shirt, helmet, goggles and of course a parachute. If you'd like to make your person standing, you can take bamboo skewers and push them through the newspaper up into the legs leaving just a tiny bit poking out of the bottom of the feet.  Then find a wooden base (sand and paint the base) and drill two holes the size of the skewer where the feet will be positioned put a little wood glue in there and stick in the end of the skewers.  You can also add support by staple gunning the feet to the wooden base and taping over the staples so they don't show.  Masking tape people should be painted with at least a coat or two of clear spray paint to keep the glue on the tape from drying out and peeling off, but you can also give students acrylics and paint them completely with color.

!!!B CR8IV!!!