Sunday, September 5, 2010

Our Quilt

A few weeks ago I read about making a quilt on Teach Preschool. When I saw that, I knew we would do that in my class at some point. I love using colored masking tape. And I've become interested in more cooperative art, art we all do together that stays in the room.

This cooperative aspect of art encourages kids to focus on the process, on what they are doing, since they will not have a "product" to take home. For more ideas on cooperative art experiences, check out Teacher Tom, Irresistible Ideas for Play Based Learning, and Let the Children Play.

A couple of weeks ago we were focusing on working together, so I thought this quilt activity would fit in perfectly.

We taped some large pieces of paper together and sectioned off the areas with tape and attached it to the floor.


Several kids worked on it throughout the morning.



At the end of the day, several areas were still not used, so I taped the quilt to our oil drip pan and set it out again the next week.


The squares were all full by the end of that day. We hung the quilt up so everyone could see it.

I like that there are some figures, some names, some designs - a variety of squares for our class quilt. This week we looked at the quilt and found different pictures that children did. We'll let the quilt adorn our room for a while.

What types of community art do you like to do with your class?