BELLY OF A WHALE

 

kindergARTen BRAINS, Belly of a Whale:  During this session, the Education Lab will feature a small round tent that has been transformed into an open-mouthed whale. Youth will fabricate objects and cut-outs to place inside that represent things they imagine the creature may have swallowed in its travels, making a temporary and interactive installation simulating a whale and the contents of its belly.

I feel like I say this a lot, but this project really was SO much fun. The campers had a great time imagining and making drawings of things they thought the whale might have swallowed: fish, sharks, lizard-creatures, shoes, a tire, a trash can, a necklace from a sunken ship, an anchor, a submarine... The drawings were cut out and attached to the tent's domed interior (aka the roof of the whale's mouth) and were also hung with yarn from the same surface.

I was pretty anxious about the making of the whale before class (tent + plastic tablecloths + various stuffing to make it look slightly less exactly like a tent draped with plastic tablecloths), and may have once or twice accused it of looking like a wrinkled muppet made of blue trash bags. In the end though, I thought it was a perfectly friendly DIY creature for the kiddos, and the more they added to it, the more excited everyone was to crawl inside and check it out. Belly of a Whale, we <3 you! Come see us again sometime.

Help! We've been swallowed by a whale!

Oh wait, it's actually pretty cool in here.