1st Grade Roller Coasters with Science Integration

I've been working a lot this year with the 1st grade classroom teachers to integrate what they are doing in the classroom into the Art room. I probably have the best relationships with them than any other level in the building which makes integrating a lot easier. The negative I am dealing with is that both of my buildings in the district don't do the same curriculum at the same time. So while I'm making awesome connections at one building, the other doesn't get quite the same impact. 

This project with first grade has probably been the most successful integration so far. The unit in science they were working on included forces, simple machines, and pushes and pulls. It was like alarms going off in my head to connect a project to this unit because of the endless possibilities. After talking to the first grade teachers and bouncing ideas around I came up with doing a roller coaster. I once upon a time pinned this and this roller coaster idea which likely gave my brain some input on the project, especially with the passengers :)

I can statement for this project: I can use different types of lines and imagination to create a roller coaster.

Day 1: Started with reading this graphically beautiful and silly book Lines that Wiggle (on amazon)

Then I started giving them clues about what we were going to be doing for our project...
"It is something made up of lines"
"It works with pushes and pulls and forces"
"You can ride it"
Etc...
Pretty quickly after those three clues they figured out it was roller coasters and I put up this PDF that we searched for different lines in...

Then diving into the science part of it we figured out where all the pushes and pulls would be and what parts of a roller coaster are what simple machines. It was pretty amazing listening to 6 and 7 year olds talk about roller coasters in that context! Then the art making! I did a demo of drawing a coaster and going over it in a paint color, after they had been working for awhile we road this roller coaster :)

Day 2: Started with another roller coaster ride from a local small amusement park in Green Bay, so some of the kids have actually ridden in :)

We looked at our paintings and talked about the lines we used then I demoed cutting "riders" out of the magazines and creating the carts for the "riders". They could choose whoever or whatever they wanted to ride their roller coaster which made for some very silly results :)

McDill Elementary...

Jefferson Elementary...