Friday, January 9, 2009

Foiled again....



Well, over the last 2-3 days, my 7th graders were making aluminum foil people. We had already studied figure drawing and learned about proper proportion in the human figure. Now we were ready to make a 3-D figure. I'm posting these directions because it would be fun for kids at any age. I myself, even made 4 different figures while the kids were working. Below you will see some of what the kids made. The one with the skirt, I made.
Here are the directions:

Take a piece of aluminum foil (12" wide) and cut it to be 15 " in length. Mark the foil at the top with a sharpie as shown and also on the bottom.


















Cut slits where marked. (2 at the top to make arm and head areas and 1 at the bottom for the 2 legs.


















Grab the foil in the center and smoosh inward to make the 'waist' area.

Squeeeze together each leg and each arm to make more of a cylinder shape.



















Take the foil in the head area and start rolling it forward and crunching it at the same time. This will allow the head to have a 'chin' area.
Continue smooshing the foil to thin out the arms and legs, etc. and shape the head.


Manipulate the foil by pressing on it to make areas thinner and to get a fairly proportional body shape.




Bend the guy into any position you want to.


Then, add some clothes with additional pieces of foil. You may have to glue gun some things in place. To make hats, the kids pressed a circle or oval of foil on a wooden bead that was about the size of the head to use as a form, and then pulled it off and glued it onto the 'real' (foil) head. For a skirt, I cut out a circle of foil, cut out another small circle in the center of it and cut a slit into it to slip it onto the waist of the foil person. Then I 'hemmed' it, just by folding the foil under to give it more strength, and then played with it to get the folds and shape that I wanted.

This student called this 'windy day in France'














hmmm, me when I get up in the morning??


Meditating.....


A young lady with a skirt !

















This is a boxer.....


So, that was fun and the kids loved it ! I hope you do, too.

4 comments:

BumbleVee said...

these are pretty darn good Elenka...I think the kids did a great job...

BrisanapageMoments said...

The "made me smile" of the day!
What original ideas kids have!
ahhh.....to access the child's mind again!

LuAnne said...

I know it's been a while since you posted this project, but I wanted to thank you for sharing it. I used it today with a group of 3rd through 5th graders and it was a huge hit! They said it was one of their favorite projects of the year. Thanks for the great instructions! :-)

Unknown said...

4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th graders had a terrific time with this project. We may use our characters to make a movie too. Thanks for the fun, entertaining activity and directions. Lets kids be kids - adults too :)