Kinetic Art

Kinetic art involves creating artworks that move, often powered by wind, touch, or simple mechanisms, which captivates children’s curiosity and encourages them to experiment with motion and balance. Through making kinetic sculptures or mobiles, children develop fine motor skills as they manipulate materials like wire, paper, and recycled objects, and they engage in problem-solving by figuring out how to make their creations move smoothly without tipping over. This process introduces basic engineering concepts such as balance, center of mass, and cause-and-effect, while also fostering spatial reasoning and mathematical thinking as kids measure, arrange, and adjust parts to achieve equilibrium. Moreover, kinetic art encourages exploration and imaginative play, allowing children to experiment with materials and designs freely, which builds perseverance as they test and refine their work.

Mobiles

Finding the center of Gravity

Center of Gravity

Cut out some regular shapes, squares, circles, triangles out of cardboard or stock. Cut out some irregular shapes. Find the center of the regular shapes and balance the card on a pin. How to find the center for an irregular shape? Suspend the shape from one of its corners with a piece of string. Continue the thread line from the corner it is hung from to the bottom of the card. Hang from another corner and continue the line to the bottom. The center is where the two lines intersect.

Finger Center of Gravity 1

After cutting out the shape shown, place paper clips on each wing. Place center on finger and see if it balances

Balance and Counterweight

Balance and counterweight are fundamental principles in creating hanging mobiles. These concepts involve distributing weight evenly across the mobile's structure to achieve a state of equilibrium. When crafting a mobile, each element must be carefully positioned to counteract the weight of others, ensuring the entire piece hangs level and moves smoothly. This delicate balance is achieved by adjusting the length of arms, the position of hanging points, and the weight of individual components.

The Coat Hanger

Creating a basic mobile using a coat hanger as the main arm. Children can hang various lightweight objects on each side, experimenting with different weights and positions to achieve balance. Another activity could be constructing a mobile using craft sticks, string, and small objects like paper shapes or lightweight toys. Kids can explore how changing the position of the hanging points affects the overall balance.

Seesaw

Explain the concept of counterweights while playing on a seesaw. Explain that when you add weight to one side of a mobile or a seesaw, you might need to add something to the other side to keep it from tipping over.

Movement and Rotation

Movement and rotation are crucial aspects of hanging mobiles, contributing to their dynamic and engaging nature. Movement in mobiles refers to the way individual pieces and the entire structure sway and shift in response to air currents or gentle touches. Rotation involves the turning of elements around their hanging points, creating a constantly changing visual display. These qualities make mobiles captivating and give them a sense of life and energy.

Spinners and Pinwheels

Spinning Art

If you have any tape that has ended - save those circles! If not, cut some paper towel tubes and toilet paper tubes so that you have a circle. Or grab your cardboard and cut out a circle - then make a hole for the pencil and start to make some spinning art. Do you have a lazy Suzan? Place paper in the Tupperware with drops of paint in it. Spin and check out the results. With fan?

MOBILE

Paper Pop Ups

Simple Fold

Using a v-fold you can create a section that popsup when you open the page. You can decorate this section and it will be raised when card is open. Alternatively, you can glue something onto the v-fold, and that image will pop up when card is opened. Experiment!

Accordian (or Spring)

The accordion fold is like making a spring out of paper, to be attached from the base paper to the object spring (a cut out image for example) - that will popup when the base is unfolded.

Box PopUP

Fold a sheet of paper in half and cutting two parallel slits to create a tab that folds inward when the card opens, making a 3D shape pop out. The key steps include folding the base paper in half, cutting two vertical lines about an inch apart on the fold (forming an “11” shape), then folding the cut tab inward to create the pop-up element. You can then decorate or glue shapes onto this tab to personalize your pop-up card.

Moving Parts

ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕊𝕠𝕠𝕟

AGAMOGRAPH

Agamograph Art is made by folding paper into an accordion shape and attaching strips of two different pictures on the folds. When you look at the artwork from one side, you see one image, and when you move to the other side, the image changes to something completely different.

Balancing Sculpture

balancing sculp challenge

Kinetic sculpture