Finished Spheres

This week 3rd graders finished up their Floating Spheres. The first part of the lesson is posted here. First they shaded their pencil spheres with crayon to add a bit of subtle color. I had to remind a few to continue to use curved lines, echoing the curve of the sphere as they shaded.

Then they cut out their 3 spheres and glued them onto their black and white vanishing point drawing.

We talked again about "fooling the eye" with the placement of the spheres on the background. To create the illusion, students placed the smallest sphere near their vanishing point, the largest sphere partly off the page, and the middle size anywhere in between. In the lesson I also emphasized arranging the spheres with the white highlight always in the same position. Most kids remembered to do this, but not all.

A final step, if the kids wished to do it, was to glue their whole composition on a matt board (either colored or black). It was interesting to see how they solved the problem of where to put the glue for pieces that stuck off the matt!!