I just love the glasswork of Dale Chihuly and have wanted to do some kind of a lesson on him for a few years now. I ordered a heat gun this year and made the goal to finally figure out the studio work for the kids to do. We just barely fit it in before the end of school, but I figured it out and we did it! The 5th graders loved Chihuly (like I knew they would) and they were so excited to make these cool sculptures. To make them, each student got an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of transparent shrink film and two clear plastic to-go-type dishes that I picked up at a local salvage store. They cut-out shapes (and punched holes in them) and then colored them with Sharpies. Then boy did the new heat gun get a work out! We shot the individual pieces unevenly so that they warped into unique 3-dimensional shapes. The students strung them onto Twisteez wire and some used sections of straws to give the plastic pieces some space between them.