Lots of art projects and lesson ideas on Pinterest looking fantastic and perfect for you classroom. However, I caution you: they don’t always work.
This art lesson was a major lesson for me as well as the students. I saw pictures of this art project on Pinterest and thought they would be adorable for Easter- a somewhat functional creation that could be used for a variety of purposes and most likely not done in the past. However, even though I did attempt the project myself in advance, none of them worked out.
They were intended to look like this:
So I set the classroom up during lunch and everything was perfect and ready to go!
The students were excited and after I gave a short demo, the fun began. The fun lasted about 2 minutes. Students realized their strings weren’t sticking to the balloons and kept falling off. Many had to re-do their entire balloon several times. Once they had given up, we hung them up to dry over night.
After they strings dry, the instructions are to pop the balloons and the strings will hold their shape. I popped them in the morning before students were in the room as I had a feeling over night they weren’t going to work. This was the result:
Instead of an egg, students ended up with piles of strings. I kept popping hoping at least 1 would work. But they all ended up as just a small mess.
As the students lined up outside the classroom before the bell rang, my heart pounded. I was scared to tell them what happened. I felt like it was my fault. So I joined them in the hallway after the bell rang and told them I had something I have to tell them. I started with a long apology and ended up explaining the resulting situation.
One of my youngest students raises her hand and says “It’s OK Miss Smith, now we have a bird’s nest instead of an egg!” I almost cried. The optimism of this girl was overwhelming. It was nice to hear that I wasn’t a complete failure.
Lesson learned: make sure you follow all the directions carefully. Don’t make personal edits and choices to the materials or the steps involved.