Friendship Mobiles

Science

What You Need

• Colored construction paper
• Coat hangers
• Yarn or string

What to Do

1. Ask children to think about and name different elements of nature, such as sun, moon, stars, wind, rain, snow, fog, rainbows, water (including oceans, lakes, and rivers). List their answers on the board. Then ask them to talk about how these different elements can be considered friends. You might volunteer a suggestion, such as, the rain is my friend because it helps me sleep at night. Have children model their responses on your example and record them on chart paper.

2. Then have children draw and cut out shapes representing their friends in nature. (You may want to create templates or stencils for the children to trace.) When children have cut out three or four shapes, they can punch a hole near the top of each one and attach them to a hanger, using different lengths of yarn.

3. Next, have children copy sentences from the chart that describe the friends on their mobile. They can mount this page on a piece of construction paper and draw a picture of themselves on the back. Then they can attach it to the mobile as well.

4. Hang the mobiles from the ceiling in your classroom or in a nearby hallway.

Teaching Options

• You may want to assemble children's cutouts into three or four class mobiles and display them over the chart paper.
• Have children cut out pictures from magazines, mount them on construction paper and use them to make a nature friends mobile.
• Children could make mobiles with a single focus. One child may choose to show pictures of water (rain, river, ocean) on his mobile while another may display only pictures of snow on hers.