"Quilting is Like a Big Puzzle"

         As part of our Art Unit, I asked two quilters to share their quilts with us.  The kids really enjoyed seeing (and touching) the quilts and asking questions about how they were made.

       After seeing "real" quilts, we made our own using paper.  We started by painting paper. I love how beautiful the paper was. We put drops of liquid watercolor on wet paper and then added lots of salt. It just gets prettier as it dries. I cut the paper into squares (and strips for the rolled paper collage).

           I also made a template that had 9 squares and five different quilt patterns.  I copied these onto bright paper.  After picking a color to go with their colored paper and writing their name the child circled the pattern they wanted to make.  They then told me what shapes they needed (squares or triangles) and how many of each. They then laid out the pattern.  As one of my kiddos noted, "quilting is just like doing a big puzzle."

         I then cut off the pattern part of the paper.  We hung them with the quilt so that our families could use the clues of color and pattern to figure out which one their child did.