Paper Sculpture STEAM Program

 

On a shoestring budget? No time to plan and prep? Need a super simple, low-cost, low-effort-yet-high-quality program in a pinch? Looking for open-ended, process art that's easy and not messy? Then this one's for you!

I first saw this project about a year ago (sorry, I don't remember where or by whom), and thought it would be a great fit for the summer reading 2025 theme of "Color Our World". I loved how colorful and creative it was, and since it was abstract art there would be no "wrong" way of doing it and each person's piece would be unique. But I ended up leaving that library before summer reading, and the library I went to was doing a different theme and already had programs planned through August. This library unfortunately does not have a healthy programming budget, and I still really wanted to do this program, so it was a natural choice for my first school-age program this fall.

Time: 1 hour

Ages: 5-12 (actual ages of my participants were 4-10)

Budget: Nominal, basic stock supplies already on hand

Description: "Get creative and explore shapes, movement, and spatial relationships by twisting, folding, curling, and gluing strips of colored paper to create a one-of-a-kind sculpture."

Concepts & Skills:

• Colors
• Spatial relationships
• Fine-motor
• Socio-emotional
• Creativity

Materials & Supplies:

• assorted colors of paper, cut into strips of varying widths (I only had 9x12 construction and 8.5x11 printer papers, I wish I'd had the bigger construction paper to cut longer strips from)
• glue sticks (liquid glue will not work as it doesn't dry fast enough)
• cardboard bases (I used thin cardboard from cereal boxes)
• scissors, in case they want to cut strips shorter or thinner
• pencils, markers, and/or crayons, to use to wind strips around for curls & spirals, writing names, or embellishing paper strips

How To:

1. I cut all the strips ahead of time, and made an example, both to use for promotion and to give them an idea of what we were doing.
   
   
2. I emphasized that there was no wrong way to do it, and that each person's piece would be unique and different, just like we were each unique and different. I demonstrated how to do some of the basic shapes (bridge, circle, accordian-fold, spiral, freeform twist), but encouraged them to experiment.
   
   
   
   
   
3. Shape a strip, anchor one end with glue stick and hold 3-5 seconds, then anchor the other end.
   
   
4. Keep adding paper strips until you feel your sculpture is done!
   
   
5. Each participant created their own sculpture which they took home with them, and each participant also added strips to the collaborative piece below that was put on display at the library.
   
   

   

   Collaborative Sculpture

   
   

How It Went:

I am at a small neighborhood library that usually does not get very large attendance at programs, so I was thrilled to end up with 3 participants, along with their caregivers. They all seemed to really enjoy the project, and were proud and excited with their finished sculptures. It was interesting to see that each child tended to gravitate towards a particular shape, though they all used multiple shapes, and even came up with shapes that I had not thought of. One partipant had the idea to embellish the strip, writing his inital on each section of an accordion-folded strip.

I really like collaborative art, and was glad I thought of having everyone contribute to a collaborative piece to put on display in the library. The kids really seemed to like being able to both take their sculpture home, and have one on display at the library. I of course loved the low-prep aspect, which really was fortuitous as we were extremely short-staffed this week, which meant I was on the service desk pretty much all day, every day, with no built-in set-up time. 

This was a fun, easy, and successful program that I will definitely do again in the future. I highly recommend it, even if you have a very healthy program budget, adequate staffing, and tons of prep time 😉.