Watercolor Practice Puzzle

Last year my students loved a set of cardboard quilting squares that could be assembled in a variety of ways to create different "quilt" tops.  I thought that this year's students could make similar quilt squares to practice using watercolors and mixing secondary colors.

Each child will have 4-6 squares of watercolor paper cut 3" X 3".  They'll draw a diagonal line from corner to corner and then another from the midpoint of that line to one of the other corners. (see sample)

They will trace over the pencil lines with a heavy crayon line. This creates one large triangle and 2 smaller triangles.

Using watercolors, kids will paint the 2 smaller triangles with any 2 primary colors and then mix those 2 colors together to get a secondary color to use to paint the larger triangle.

When the squares dry, students can move them around like puzzle pieces to make different designs.  They will soon want to combine their squares with those of their neighbors and pretty soon I anticipate seeing a large quilt design materializing on the rug!! What fun!!