Finding a Balance

During our mobile-making day in the six and seven-year-old classroom, learning how to find a balance was a big theme. Trying to make model magic sculptures and dowel rods successfully balance and beautifully hang from the ceiling was a challenge! As a teacher, trying to balance how much to tell the students and how much to let them experiment and discover for themselves can also be a challenge. We want to guide our students in the right direction without giving them all of the answers. I think having them work with the mobile hands-on and experience failure and success allowed the students to collaborate and teach each other throughout the mobile-balancing process. A lot of decision-making and planning went into the mobiles as well. Students had to collectively decide where to place the objects, which ones were the heaviest, which ones were the lightest, how to move the strings to make the whole thing stay balanced, and what to do when it did not balance.

My group chose to put the heaviest objects in the middle, and the lighter ones on the outside, a smart suggestion made by Garrison who quickly grasped the idea of balancing and became one of the leaders of the group. As we hung the objects, the students were able to share with each other what they had made. Garrison's large lego man carrying a smaller lego man on his back was the heaviest piece, so it became the center of the mobile. We then needed two pieces to go on either side of the lego men that would balance. Rouwa's comic book characters were the perfect fit so that we kept all of the "guys" in the middle.

Garrison: "Well this side is higher, so we should put the heavier one here." [Picking up Rouwa's sculptures] "I'll tell you which one is heavier."

Together Rouwa and Garrison balanced the middle portion of the mobile, which set a a great example for the rest of the group.

After this initial success, the rest of the group was excited and could see the mobile coming together. I feel that allowing the students to teach each other worked out much better than if I would have done the balancing for them. They had a sense of pride accomplishment when it was all said and done that they would not have had if I had given them all the answers.