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Tuesday, March 9, 2010

3rd Grade Recycled Magazine Bowls

Third grade just finished one of the coolest projects of the entire year.  Continuing our effort to be green this year, we made bowls out of magazine pages!  Each student rolled page after page around a chip board strip.  The individual pages were taped together and rolled into one giant spiral.  The bottom was then pushed down and the entire bowl was given a coat of clear medium to give it strength.  We had great discussions of how artists can use recycled materials.  It must have been a great project because other grade levels are begging me to let them do this project, too! 

13 comments:

Mr. E said...

I really like this project. Are there any issues that happened that you could share as a warning for those of us that might try this?? -Mr.E

Zach Stoller said...

There are definitely a few things to watch out for. I used 1/2" strips of chip board for the kids to use to wrap magazine pages around. I'd probably bump that up to 3/4" next time. Also, I ran into some problems with some magazines having heavier paper for covers, etc. Kids who tried to use those weren't able to get them to fold as easily. I also had some issues with unraveling, but it was mostly from kids who were trying to form a bowl before they were really supposed to. The thicker strips of paper should alleviate most of that issue. There are more detailed instructions here - http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/2008/08/recycled-magazine-bowls.html That is where I originally found the idea. You'll have to let me know how those changes work out of you end up trying the project.

Lori Decoite said...

Love this project!!Thanks for sharing

Miss Hallie Spooner said...

This is awesome! I'm trying to be green in the art room as well and this is a great lesson to try. Thank you for sharing!

Zach Stoller said...

Lori & Hallie- Thanks for the positive comments! If you're interested in other "green" ideas, I designed a website as part of my master's thesis about being green in the art room. The link is:
www.greenartroom.com

I also have a ning page to facilitate discussion between teachers interested in becoming more green in their rooms. That page is at:
http://greenartroom.ning.com/

christian said...

I like!! Looks very interesting!

Miss Hallie Spooner said...

cool!! i'll check it out...thank you!!

tracy said...

I LOVE this project and I've seen this a few times. What is chip board? Do you happen to have the lesson plan posted on the blog?

Anonymous said...

could you tell me how wide you let the coils get before you have the students form the bowl? thanks!

Zach Stoller said...

I have the kids wrap the pages around until they make a disk that is anywhere between 5"-7". Just make sure the disk is wrapped very tightly. That was the biggest problem with my students. Good luck!

Anonymous said...

thanks for the response to my anonymous comment! i'm another art teacher, by the way. i tried one on my own, i made it to four inches wide. it wants to spiral up tall instead of out wide. maybe i didn't get it tight enough? it's unraveled a few times when i've been playing with it, but i've been able to fix it so far. i still need to coat it with a sealant.
-Jill

dmasse said...

i was tempted to do this last year, but it seemed like it would take soooo long! what was the time frame students had to complet the project?

Zach Stoller said...

It wasn't a short project, but it didn't take too terribly long, either. I think we spent approximately 4-5 class periods on it. You could make it a little shorter, but the bowls would just be smaller!