Making Mobiles

Help your child take part in the 3-D craze by making cool, multi-dimensional art. Making mobiles is a fun way for your child to interact with her surrounding space, and the finished product adds a pretty, decorative touch to your home. This entertaining introduction to modern art shows her how to use easy-to-find materials to create a floating work of art—complete with her favorite shapes and animals.

What You Need:

• Construction paper
• Markers or Crayons
• String
• Scissors
• Wooden dowels or sturdy twigs (three or more depending on how many arms you would like your mobile to have)

What to Do:

1. Have your child cut out five crazy shapes. These can be anything from favorite animals or toys, to abstract shapes that just look cool. To make the mobile more interesting ask her to decorate the shapes with markers or crayons. To add some extra creative touches she can use glitter glue and a hole puncher to embellish the shapes.
2. Once the shapes are cut out, she can start constructing the mobile! Using a string and needle, have her pull a short length of knotted thread through the balancing point of one of the shapes.
3. She'll tie the other end of the thread to the end of one of the wooden dowels. On the other end of the same dowel, attach another shape.
4. Have her do the same with a second dowel and attach a shape to each end.
5. Taking a third dowel, have her attach a shape to only one end using the same method with a string.
6. Now she can tie a thread around the middle of one of the dowels that has two shapes, and attach it to the end of the dowel with a single shape.
7. Using a short length of thread, she'll attach what she's made to the remaining dowel. Tie the thread where the mobile will balance.
8. Tie a longer length of thread to the top dowel to make it balanced. The length of thread will determine how far the mobile will hang from the ceiling.
9. Now you have a beautiful new work of art for decoration!

This activity gets kids involved with the laws of gravity in an artful way, and sparks thought about balance and asymmetry!