Flying Fish Stabile

1. Investigate stabiles and mobiles, both invented by artist Alexander Calder. How are the two types of displays alike and different? What principles of physics do they use? Find fish with different body and fin shapes. What geometric patterns do their scales form?
2. Using Crayola Erasable Colored Pencils and the information you found about marine life, sketch small fish on half of a white side of Crayola Color Explosion paper. Fold the paper so the black sides are together. Cut out along your outlines.
3. Turn each set of matching fish with the black side up. Decorate them with the Color Explosion color-reveal markers. Duplicate patterns you found in nature.
4. With Crayola School Glue, attach a chenille stem between each back-to-back pair of fish. Clip them together until the glue dries.
5. Use Crayola Model Magic to create a stabile base for your fish. Mix colors. Form coral, shells, and other authentic sea plants to add to the base. Stick the chenille stems with the fish into the Model Magic. The unique science stabile is ready to display!

LA: Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.

LA: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content.

LA: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

LA: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions with diverse partners on grade level topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.

MATH: Recognize and draw shapes having specified attributes, such as a given number of angles or a given number of equal faces. Identify triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, hexagons, and cubes.

SCI: Ask questions about the natural and human-built worlds.

SCI: Construct drawings or diagrams as representations of events or systems.

SS: Describe ways in which language, stories, folktales, music, and artistic creations serve as expressions of culture and influence behavior of people living in a particular culture.

VA: Intentionally take advantage of the qualities and characteristics of art media, techniques, and processes to enhance communication of experiences and ideas.

VA: Select and use the qualities of structures and functions of art to improve communication of ideas.

Students research the similarities and differences between stabiles and mobiles and discuss the differences.

Students research a specific species of ocean life and organize their research into an electronic presentation to share with classmates.

Students create a mobile of their selected fish. Included in the mobile is a sketch of the fish and a summary of important points of their research. Display these mobiles in the classroom or in a school hallway for viewing.