Prom Decorations: Enchantment Under the Stars

 

Another prom is in the books. I had a great time figuring out how to hide the cafeteria lunch line with a wall of sets that were a series of photo ops. The lover head lighting fixture provided a structure for hanging clouds and stars on fishing line. One of the lightbulbs was removed so that a converter could be inserted to provide a power source for the LED lights that strung in and out of the clouds. I lost the remote in all of the things I had to move, so they stayed blue the whole night, but it would have been fun to make some purples and pinks appear in the clouds as well.

This is the first year I ever used balloon arches, but they left over from the previous Teacher Appreciation Week events and so I borrowed and rearranged them.

The Rocket and Paper moon photo booths were something I made in 2017 for a church prom, and kept in case the need would arise.

The hot air balloon hooked on to the top of the set. I added the burlap ribbon and rope at the last minute. Originally I thought the balloon would be twice as wide but I cut the angles to sharp and when it closed up it made the entire ellipsoid, instead of just the front half of the balloon. It looks a little more balloon shape this way than the bottom half of the balloon as I had first planned.

Seniors came in early for their pictures. The lighting was better before they went to dinner and came back for "senior lead out" and the dance. A simple color scheme sometimes is enough to have a big impact, but a coherent theme is the icing on the cake. After dancing and chatting with students all night, I have to say it was a pretty enchanting evening...under the stars.

DYI Hot Air Balloon Photo Booth

For our Enchantment Under the Stars prom I thought it might be fun to have sky and air related decorations..so when someone showed up at my classroom with the side flaps from tri-fold boards,  wondered if maybe they could be used to make a hot air balloon.

I started but cutting a the corners at using masking tape to make a template so they'd all be at the same corners. Then I used spray paint to get a little color going.

After creasing the boards where the angles are, I began using hot glue to get  the edges to stick together. 

I did all of the bottom parts before bending them up and gluing the center section. This At this point, I completed the final two edges to make a barrel shape and then finished up the top flaps. With all the guess work of the angles, I was pleased that it resembled a balloon shape.

The basket was made by weaving strips of cardboard. We used two sdes of a large box, with enough cardboard at the bottom to stand up on it's own. I cut out the spaces n between the vertical slats to be about the same width as the slats themselves.  I stapled the ends of the horizontal strips to the vertical slats and let students weave them in and out. We used brown paper lunch stuffed with newspaper for the sandbags, and I made little pendants that matched the colors of the balloon and spelled out Prom 2026.

I glued three pieces of cardboard to the back of the balloon. The two perpendicular pieces had notches cut into them to slide on the top of the wooden set panel and give the illusion that it is floating in the sky. Painters tape covered the seams and imperfections. The night of the prom, I hot glued a banner, and ropes to the balloon once it was hanging. It's always nice when the process pays off.

 

DYI Piñata and Maracas

 So far this semester we've studied Australia and made Aboriginal dot paintings. We studied Ancient Rome and made mosaics. We made batik and shadow puppets after learning about Indonesia. We made kites inspired by China, and brush and ink paintings, calligraphy and wind socks inspired by Japan. But we've got cultures to learn about right here in North America, so we took a virtual trip to Mexico for the week of Cinco de Mayo and learned about pinatas.

Piñatas were originally ceramic jugs filled with seeds or fruits by  ancient Aztecs before breaking open. Catholic missonaries who came to Mexico 500 years ago, incorporated this tradton into their teachings of the seven deadly sins by adding seven points to the piñatas. This object lesson taught that breaking bad habits and overcoming sin yields rewards. Today, children still reap treats from breaking open piñatas at parties. We made our piñatas by wrapping strips of bulletin board dipped in liquid starched around balloons. Two or three layers does the trick.

While some students made animals such as llamas or dogs, most stayed with the traditional coned shape. This was done by cutting a pie slice shape out of a card stock circle and wrapping it into a cone. These usually needed hot glue to attach to the dried paper maché. Then most students used squares of tissue paper wrapped around the flat end of a pencil and dipped into a little glue before adding to the piñata for texture and color. It helps once the piece is positioned on the piñata, to hold the edges of the tissue with one hand while sliding the pencil out with the other.

There were no complaints about making piñatas, as students could work at their own pace and fill the time. Some students claimed this was their favorite project of the year.

Kite Making

The Chinese invented the kite thousands of years ago as a military tool. Today it is used it is used for recreation and sport and the largest kite festival in the world is in-you guessed it-China. As we were doing our sumi ink paintings while studying Japan, it had to be mentioned that Chinese also use ink and brush for calligraphy and nature images. We started our unit by watching a video about China and then comparing and contrasting the two cultures. Which one can claim the origins of Confucianism and which Shintoism? students wrote, typed and printed words and phrases for each other to sort into a tactile Venn diagram.

Day 2 we began to work on flags. students used bamboo skewers, wooden dowels, or straws as the skeleton for kites in various shapes and forms. Kids with some vision drew on on bulletin board paper, while those who were totally blind used dot makers, tape, stencils or collage to decorate their kite. Tales were made with string and with ribbons tied to them, or crepe paper streamers.

Then came the test of flight. The week before kite week was breezy but there was no wind on the days we tried to fly our kites. Students would run and hold their arm high to get it going, with a few glimpses of success. For for someone who'd never seen a kite, much less tried to fly one, it was pretty fun. Next breezy Saturday when my students' families are looking for something to do, maybe they can consider taking a kite to the park and trying it again.