An Idea for Integrating Art Techniques into Your Reading Block

Have you ever heard of quilling?  I had not... until I taught Arts and Crafts (grades Kindergarten through 5th grade - yes, all in the same classroom - it was CrAzY!) this last summer.

According to www.quilling.com, quilling is:

Quilling or paper filigree is the art of creating designs with narrow strips of paper that have been wound around a quill or quilling tool to create a basic shape. The basic shapes are glued together and arranged to form all kinds of creative and interesting designs. Quilling is one of the easiest crafts to learn. Nearly all of quilling is done with just a few variations of basic rolls and scrolls.

We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, the students selected their favorite scene, character, or object from the story, and then they re-created that scene using this neat art technique.  Check out some of the students' work!  Believe it or not, most of these were done by Kindergarten students.  :)

Many kiddos chose to re-create the butterfly:

These students liked the sun on the very first page of the book, so they chose to re-create that scene:

We did not have any special tools.  The students simply wrapped some a whole bunch of paper strips around a pencil to create coils.  They then made what we called a "wall" to put all the coils in and give the scene formation.  The students used Elmer's glue to keep it all in place.

Like I said, we did this for Arts and Crafts, so we read the book and did the project, but then we stopped there.  If I do this art project in my classroom, I will also incorporate a writing piece that relates to the scene.

Give this art technique a try!  It is not that difficult, BUT it is a bit time-consuming - just to warn you.  (Maybe you could have parent volunteers roll the coils ahead of time??)

Thanks for stopping by!  :)