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Magical Pop-Up Fun
Building Bridges Across the Curriculum |
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Making pop-up books and cards provides exciting opportunities for connecting art with other curriculum areas. It encourages (but doesn't require) collaboration between
art and classroom teachers, allows students to experience both convergent (following directions) and divergent thinking (exploring various media and pop-up constructs) and
can provide an arena for many art-centered learning experiences. It also represents the magic of childhood and discovery, which is central to the art experience and stays with us throughout our lives.
Practical Uses for Pop-Ups
When I began making pop-up books with third grade students, I hardly
realized the vast implications for futher work and research that were to follow. As time went on, I found strong bridges between
pop-ups and reading/writing activites, a wide array of applicable media, complementary art lessons, and various teaching strategies.
Cooperative projects with classroom teachers futher enriched these pursuits. I also discovered the breadth and depth of this area,
from quick cards to oral history of pop-up books that were months in the research and making. Finally, I became fascinated with the different
kinds of teaching strategies that could be applied, and the wide variety of learing experiences these activities brought to students.
How Shall We Teach Pop-Ups?
A sequential, structured approach in four parts:
1. Paper-engineering (following directions)
2. Drawing (using van Gogh drawings as a model)
3. Watercolor painting (wet-on-wet, and color mixing experiences)
4. Assembling, covering, and adding text of story
Lesson 1:
Paper Engineering
I showed a wide variety of pop-up books to the class. We spoke of the various ways in which things were made to move, turn and slide,
paying particular attention to underliying step-like stuctures that were used to make pictures pop out.
Making a Simple Step
I gave each student a piece of 11x17 railroad board, then demonstrated a simple step pop-up paper engineering technique. After
folding the paper in half like a book, two parallel cuts, each about 1 1/2" long, are made into the fold, forming a "tab" centered on the
folded edge, that can be folded up and creased so that it looks like a missing tooth. (See illustration) After unfolding the tab, the page is
opened and the tab is pushed into the interior space of the page, where it then pops up like a step.
I explain that paper-engineering follows certain rules of principles, and that the subsequent drawings, paintings, and storytelling phases would
be creative. I demonstrated "turners" (a circle with a paper fastener in the center attacted to the page) and "sliders" (strips woven in and out of slits made in the page).
Students could make several steps on one page, make some bigger than others, and even do some steps within steps, a sort of mulit-generational
cutting of new pairs of slits on folds within the first step. (Using just the simple techniques will also give you a successful pop-up experience.)
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A Pop-Up Picture
I gave the students a small piece of railroad board about 3 1/2 x 2 1/2" to draw a picture, that would later be cut out and
glued to the front of the step. (Hints: Always put glue on the front of the step, not on the back of the pop-up picture. When
cutting out the contour of the pop-up object, leave a small margin of white paper around the edge for added strength.) I encouraged
students to do this work percisely, creasing very well by rubbing folds with the handle of their scissors.
Lesson 2:
The Artist as Mark-Maker
Using van Gogh drawings of orchards and fields near Arles, we looked at the way he used varous marks to indicate grass, trees, and sky. Besides describing texture, weight,
direction, length, and gestural quality, these lines activated spaces that might otherwise have been empty or boring. I pointed
out to the students that the black markers they would use for their drawings would make sharp, crisp lines that contrast beautifully
with the soft flowing quality of watercolors.
A discussion of foreground, middle and background was included as part of the drawing lesson.
We placed our open hands close to our faces, then extened our arms and watched our hads recede and so, look smaller in the distance.
We saw how size and placement of objects in space affect our sense of distance.
After planning their pictures on Manila paper, students drew "on the-ground" things on the lower half of the folded pop-up page, and "in-the-distance or sky"
things on the upper half of the page. They could draw directly with black marker, or first with pencil, going over it later with marker. They saved space at the bottom
of the page for writing the story. The "middleground" was occupied by the pop-up step onto which a picture would later be glued.
Lesson 3:
Watercolors
I demonstrated watercolor techniques and I encouraged color mixing, both in trays and directly on the paper. Children painted
their pop-up pages and pictures, using mainly wet-on-wet washes on large areas, and wet-on-dry techniques for details and objects. |
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Lesson 4:
Assembling
After completing one or several pages with pop-up steps, drawings, and watercolor, the students cut out their pop-up pictures and glued them
to the front of the pop-up step. (Hint: The cuts for the pop-up step should not extend further than half-way up the page, and the height
of the pop-up picture should not be greater than half the height of the page.) They added their stories to the bottom of each page. If needed,
a hinged paper containing additional text could be added and folded up at the bottom of the page. Students with multiple pages stacked them,
starting with the first page at the top of the pile. All the pages were checked to see that the top of the page faced the ceiling. Then they put
glue between the pages like butter on a stack of pancakes, placing it on three edges (but not on the folded edge) and putting a dab in the middle of the page.
For the cover the students cut construction paper, allowing extra for the height of the stack if
there were multiple pages, and then wrapped it around the book.
A Wide Range of Applications
We made many wonderful collaborations and projects using the above methods. For example, some third grade teachers wanted to do a project based on Columbus. Classes
made individual, group, and class pop-up books based on the curriculum.
The watercolored pop-up of Columbus' boats shows typical results of the structured, sequential teaching approach (with slightly more complicated steps) while the collaged
pop-up shows a collaborateive effort where groups within the class created pages depicting the agriculture, technology, environment and culture of Columbus and native
peoples of the Americas. The classroom teacher directed the research and writing while I provided the art instruction. We used Cray-pas, tempera, fabric, and markers for the
over-sized class books.
A fifth grade teacher wanted to do a project on immigration. These pop-up books incorporated painted portraits, photocopied documents, interviews, and pop-up pages, all based
on student research. The books were later exhibited at the Ellis Island Museum near the Statue of Liberty.
Expansion and Growth
My concept of pop-ups and my ability to apply it expanded. I collaborated with a poet and our students produced beautiful pop-up poetry books. Using only markers, I worked
with kindergarten children who, in one session completed colorful pop-up cards using steps and flaps (folded pieces of paper glued onto the page). I illustrated
some basic pop-up techniques by making oak-tag models and I stressed basic principles of paper-engineering. Then students experimented with their own models. I was astounded with
the results of their inventiveness.
Applying Skills in Other Areas
Although some results are less polished than the results of my first, very structured lessons, the quality of original thinking and learning is very high. Sometimes the models,
in which one can see the quality of the students' thought, are even more interesting than the finished product. There is evidence that students are applying what they have learned
outside the classroom. Some teachers told me their students' interest in reading had heightened as a result of working on pop-ups.
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Resource
From the archives of Barbara Valenta author of Pop-O-Mania: How to Create Your Own Pop-Ups |
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