Draft+Book+Text

Just what was it the vendor at the circus had said last night? "It's all in the center of gravity," was what Quincy thought he heard, but how? How did gravity have a center? Was that the center of the earth? Quincy was unsure, but he knew Ms. Arrington, his teacher, would be interested in his retelling of the circus events--and she would especially like his "Balancing Bird."

insert picture of the bird here (I have one) looks very similar, but is metal []

Last night, when Quincy had been asking his Mom and Dad how the tightrope walker balanced on the wire, the lady selling circus toys had overheard him. That's when she told Quincy that "It's all in the center of gravity" and held out one of her balancing birds. She then told the curious boy that the tightrope walker used the same science principles that the balancing bird did--and that the mobiles, hanging from his tent, also used that science as well. The vendor went on to say that mobiles such as these had only been around since the 1930s when a mechanical engineer-turned-artist first made them. Alexander Calder was his name and he was famous for creating the first mobile AND stabile.

Insert QR code to Google Doodle video here []

In fact, one of his stabiles had been destroyed in the attack on The World Trade Center in 2001. Quincy had looked it up last night on the Internet and found a "before" and "after" picture. While the stabiles were interesting, he was fascinated with the movement and aesthetic beauty of the mobiles Calder made. QR Code to []

Staring out the window, Quincy jumped as kids began getting off the bus at school--he'd been so lost in his thoughts he almost didn't step off!

Walking into the classroom, Quincy was surprised to see a balancing bird just like his on the teacher's desk. She began class by showing hers and telling about her visit to the circus last night--and it turns out that she, too, had been fascinated by the tightrope walkers balancing on such a thin wire. She had bought the balancing bird to share so that Quincy and his friends could fabricate their own! Recently their school science department had provided fabricators to all classrooms and students were just learning how to use them. This bird would be their second time using the fabricators (the first had been building cubes) and Quincy and his friends were excited to use their new skills!

S symbol to the pattern of the silhouette balancing bird. []

When the kids were each playing with their balancing birds, several of them balanced theirs together on a stack of books. It reminded Quincy of the mobiles he saw last night, so he began describing them and told them about Alexander Calder creating mobiles and becoming famous for them. His teacher overheard and said, "That's not all he was famous for--why don't you all gather 'round and I'll share a story about Calder, called "Sandy's Circus."

QR codes to several of the Whitney Museum videos of Sandy sharing his circus.

As the teacher finished reading the book, several of Quincy's classmates wished they had wire to make some wire sculptures like the ones in Sandy's Circus. Quincy's teacher smiled and reached over to her desk to get out packages of pipe cleaners. While Quincy wanted to try his hand at the wire figures, he also still wondered about the vendor's statement-- "It's all in the center of gravity." He mentioned that to the teacher and she said, "Anyone who would like to explore Quincy's curious statement, come over the table by the window. The rest of you may build figures with the pipe cleaners."

Once the group had gathered at the table, the teacher showed pictures of mobiles and explained that Alexander Calder had originally studied mechanical engineering, although he had been interested in creating things with wire most of his life. QR code to websites of Calder's Mobiles--especially calder.org

Then the teacher gave each student a pipe cleaner and two small balls of clay

QR code to center of gravity work http://dev.physicslab.org/Document.aspx?doctype=3&filename=RotaryMotion_CenterMass.xml

insert link to pipe cleaner/clay balancing activity here

As some students moved back and forth between the two activities, India, who was always full of questions, noted, "Hey, some of us have been doing art and some an engineering task--from you reading the same book! Why's that?" "They're connected," the teacher responded--and pulled out a set of papers to read with the students to explain why.

Shared reading activity: ( __[]__ )

As they finished their reading discussion, they gathered their materials to head to science class. Walking into Mr. Isaacson's class, Quincy and his friends found their stations set up with lego bricks and/or snap cubes. Turns out that half the group was going to work with one and half the other. Mr. Isaacson held out his balancing bird--and Quincy wondered if the teachers all decided to make one, too? Then Mr. I told the class they'd be exploring balance today and could choose which material to use. Quincy chose the snap cubes, seeing those as more versatile and flexible than lego bricks--but he wondered if that was true.

insert link to the two activities activity here ( [] ) and

Quincy was surprised when they shared out their findings that those who had worked with the lego bricks felt like their material had given them more insight into balance. His work with the snap cubes, on the other hand, had allowed him to think from all angles, looking at the shapes. He hoped he'd get a chance to build some shapes on the fabricator--he wanted to explore balance with irregular shapes, as Calder had. Mr. Isaacson also said they might want to go home and try some more center of gravity activities and shared this link with them:

QR code to [] (addresses difference between boys and girls)

Moving back into his homeroom for math class, Quincy and his friends realized their teachers had created a day of exploring balance by tieing their lessons to a common concept. It helped them realize just how connected everything in the world was, is what Mrs. Arrington always said. She also said that math was all about patterns and relationships--and he hoped they'd explore more about relationships between things balancing in math class. Mrs. Arrington also said she always enjoyed teaching them math right before they went to art to finish the day because math and art are so connected. "Today," Mrs. Arrington said,"we are going to explore balance through a series of activities with shapes--and we'll create a mobile that will hopefully help you understand also a bit about balance in your own lives."

insert math lesson on shapes and making the group mobile here

Mrs. Arrington was always so cool--the mobiles they had put together were now hanging from her ceiling, and he liked the way he had combined a square and rectangle to create an L-shaped figure for his part of his group's mobile. They had decided to build their mobile around their favorite things to do and Quincy felt that the L really showed how he felt about art and making things. The top part of the L represented his love for--and need to do--art to express himself, but the bottom base of the L showed how building and making and creating and fiddling with things was so important to that expression. It was the design and re-design, the refining and redoing that is so crucial to his being satisfied with something he creates. In fact, he'd had to fabricate the two solids at least three times each because he didn't measure so well the first two times. He wanted to match of the edges and vertices perfectly, so the building and the artistry blended together seamlessly. he also had struggled with balancing the L on the mobile--he had a hard time figuring out exactly where the center of gravity was, despite the work they had done in science class that day with the snap cubes. He began to see why some of his friends had said the lego bricks might have been more helpful--his L was shaped more like the lego figures they had built than the snap cube solids he had created and explored.

Quincy ends up in the art room to make his “how do I balance me?” mobile. (still to be written)

Takes the mobile home to show family and write his spatial poetry, (we do it on a wiki), goes to bed and dreams of shapes and solids to lead into the next book about spatial reasoning....kind of a prezi presentation of his spatial poetry, using movement, motion, fronts, backs, sides, tops, bottoms, etc.

extension possibilities: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlx-M53dC7M&noredirect=1

http://www.pbs.org/opb/circus/classroom/circus-physics/center-mass/