For this lesson I wanted 4th graders to think about radial balance differently than in years past. In starting this lesson and discussing radial balance students were asked to think about what kind of objects do we see throughout our day that show this? Some of the common answers: flowers, clocks, bicycle wheel, ferris wheel, ceiling fan, a spinner in a board game, the color wheel and the list continues.
In discussing these objects I went around the room and placed a sliced lemon, lime, and orange for students to observed the radial balance found within the objects. Not only did the room smell so fresh and clean for once but I also think by having the tangible example they were able to understand it much better.
As students sat a their tables and drew the citrus fruits I called three students up at a time to create a 12 in by 12 in monoprint using the gelli plate method. Unfortunately, gelli plates are not in my budget so I made my own using the recipe found here. THE kids loved it and so did I.
We used the print as a background for the completed citrus drawings, I think the contrast is quite stunning. What do you think...orange they absolutely delicious?
