Sunday, November 21, 2010

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!!

4 comments:

  1. What a great way to teach color mixing! It's also great that they can play around with composition too! I could see a huge display of these looking AMAZING! Thanks for sharing! :)

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  2. Just did this project with a group of 4-7 year olds. It was a huge hit! They especially loved the various shapes we made when putting the squares together into a quilt.
    Thanks for your project inspiration.
    Stacy Gates
    bogate.wordpress.com

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    Replies
    1. You are welcome. It has been quite a while since we have done this project - I'd forgotten about it!! I love watching the kids discover the shapes they can make putting together the "puzzle" pieces!! Thanks for reminding me!!
      Christie

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  3. Great job .Thanks for sharing such an amazing blog.Keep up writing.
    Roofers Tacoma

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