Hot Air Balloons of Discovery

Inspiration: Two of my favourite books inspired this project - Around The World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne & Oh, The Places You'll Go! by Dr Seuss. This grade 3/4 class were working with the theme of Discovery when we made these hot air balloons recently.

This was a very ambitious term-long project which saw many pitfalls! The first of which was working in a classroom in which we couldn't make any mess, secondly, the old 'paper mache over balloons' didn't work and I was left with 20 odd shrivelled paper messes when the balloons deflated before we could finish the paper mache. Unwilling to try again I ordered some Chinese paper lanterns to act as the balloons which were painted and hung from the trees to dry (I really hate not having an art room but they looked so pretty in the trees!)

 We created the baskets from old cereal boxes, glued on pieces of netting used for weaving to give the wicker texture and painted the 'baskets' brown. We attached four pieces of wire to the basket and attached the other ends to a section of cardboard cylinder painted to match the balloon. I then used a hot glue gun to glue the student's balloons to the top. Those who had time used cellophane for the fire.