Jellyfish on the Loose!

3rd Grade: Jellyfish on the Loose

3rd graders explored jellyfish. I showed a short video of the way jellyfish move through the water. I also showed a number of photographs in a flipchart. We also talked about the parts of a jellyfish-bell, tentacles (that can sting!) and a mouth pouch. Jellyfish have no brain or eyes (imagine that!) but can definitely get around with no problem in the water. They mainly eat fish eggs, shrimp and sometimes even other jellyfish! Jellyfish can be all sizes-from penny size to larger than a human. They also have a huge range in colors, but are mainly translucent. They can also have amazing patterns. Many of the students had stories to tell about jellyfish they have seen. 

I first saw the inspiration for this art over at MaryMaking:

http://marymaking.blogspot.com/2014/08/bubble-prints-with-jellyfish.html

The bubble printing was pretty straighforward. This was hands down the messiest project I have done EVER. It even won over my 1st graders Architecture Stamping. (and that was messy folks!) From reading the MaryMaking blog, I did not realize the messy factor. However, some of my students (the more careful ones) did not actually get too much paint on their hands. 

I placed some liquid watercolor into a plastic bowl. A few squirts of hand soap was then stirred in. I demonstrated how to blow through a straw into this solution until bubbles appeared. Students had to blow until the bubbles rose above the bowls. Students then lowered white paper down to "print" the bubbles. Students used blue, turquise, green and blue-green. Next art day, students drew jelly fish with sharpies on overhead projector film. (I have boxes laying around of film). Students added color with warm colors of tempera. Next day, students drew jellyfish on cardstock with soft pastel. Students cut out all the jellyfish and glued to the bubble printed paper. Lastly, tentacles were drawn in with oil pastels. 

If I do the project again, I will figure out a different way to glue on the clear film jellyfish. These fell off the paper quite often. Apparently this is one of the rare occasions Elmer's glue actually doesn't work very well. This is because the film is so slick. Or I may just leave out the film jellyfish altogether. I think making larger jellyfish with the chalk pastel like in the MaryMaking blog would have a better focal point anyway. However, I like how these came out. They are very colorful and pretty wild!