Title: Fantasy Buildings: Architectural Models in Wood
Medium: Sculpture
Materials: Wooden scrap pieces (any and all sizes available), craft sticks, wooden or chip board bases (approx 6” x 9”), and carpenters glue. Reproductions of buildings from around the world (suggestions): Eiffel Tower, Pyramids, Taj Mahal.
Grades: 3-6
Time: 2-4 45-minute sessions. (Note: Added sessions are required to paint completed models.)
Prior Knowledge: Students should be familiar with the terms: 2-D, 3-D, sculpture, and volume.
Learning Objective:
Through combining and gluing wooden shapes upon flat wooden bases to create 3-D buildings, students will learn about the discipline of architecture and that they can design sturdy, balanced, architectural models. Students will also learn that making a sculpture demands an artist to consider all angles of an object. Finally, students will learn that they can create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Motivation/Demo:
Define Architecture as the design and style of buildings.
Teacher: What steps do you think an architect takes to design a building? Why would an architect need to create miniature models of their buildings? (Discuss with students).
Ask students to compare the local style of buildings with those seen in reproductions.
Review the difference between 2-D and 3-D, and discuss the importance for buildings to be well balanced and upright.
Teacher: How can we make sure that our models are study and will stand upright? (Discuss with students). Introduce the flat base a solution to the issue of balance.
Guidelines for Activity/Demo:
Teacher: Today you will act as architects and design model buildings using pieces of wood.
Model techniques for building onto a base including: Gluing techniques, balancing techniques, and building parts separately and combining them after they dry.
Hand out materials.
Independent work:
Assist students individually as needed.
Reflection:
By looking at this model can you tell what part the artist made first?
What kind of building did you make? What is it meant to be used as?