Mixed Media Jewelry

At Grant Middle School on 3/7/13,

 6th graders combined metal and fiber in new ways to create a structured and functional piece of jewelry.

made by wrapping yarn around bent metal hair pins

Day One:
Students will bend hair pins to make closed shapes, which they will order into a pattern to be linked together.

supplies provided: ribbon, scissors, wire, needles, hair pins, and yarn

Day Two:
Students will knot, thread and wrap around through and hanging from metal shapes.

student wrapped all of her links in pink and red yarn and now is braiding yarn 

threading braid through wrapped linked pieces

Student's final bracelet

heart and diamond shaped links wrapped and hanging from ribbon

wire bangle, top linked hearts wrapped in pastel yarn, and wire base wrapped in pastel ribbons

the tool bow with curled ribbon hanging down adds extra dimension

this bracelet has a very rich feeling with thick yarn that is wrapped and wound tightly

student hand crotched a piece for around the neck

 

the weight of this piece is clearly centered and focused in the center

this necklace has a nice sense of asymmetry and is  simple clean and balanced

Store Front Design Project

8th grade students at Grant Middle School invented their own unique store front and turned it into 3D paper model with real store elements such as doors, windows, and signs. (2/7/13)

                                                     Instructional Boards for the First Day

Brainstorming sheet to get students thinking creatively 

about what type of store they could possibly come up with.

Each student filled one out before forming their 3-D model.

Some outside the box ideas from the first day:

Second Day

My example that I demoed parts of for every class.

Order of Procedures was especially important for this lesson.  

One class I did not emphasis this enough and a few students ran into trouble

 trying to add color after their store was already three dimensional.

Available Materials: colored pencils, crayons, markers, scissors, brainstorming sheets, brushes in cans of water (for applying glue) glue palettes, pencil sharpeners, and exact-o knife (that I came around with to help students with small hard to cut shapes.

A few students were so into their design and didn't get to finish in class

 so they came during their lunch to continue working.

Students experimented with folding and gluing paper flaps

 to get signs and elements of their store front to pop out.

 Two simple very successful store fronts that had a strong presence and concept behind their products and cliental.

In the last class a student who finished early decided it would be cool to arrange the stores as they were finished, making a store complex.  Which was continued on in the other classes. Setting the store fronts up together was a good reflection exercise to compare results and share interesting store concepts with each other.