This little light of mine

Last month I was working on this stained glass project idea for Kindergarten and 1st grade. (Original posts here and here.) Today at school I found a bag of 100 coffee filters that I definitely never ordered. I've seen lots of cool ideas for diffuser paper, even tried a few myself but couldn't figure out what to do with these odd shaped coffee filters. They were labeled "Cone #4"

And then it hit me. The Tiffany Lamps. Instead of having students use the painted paper, and try to cut out the lampshades, these were already the perfect shape. I love the way the transparency of the coffee filter lends itself to the lampshade. While I know I should just shelve the idea til next year, I was too excited. So it's going to bump up to 2nd grade who did not get to do the stained glass project last year.

Since color theory for our 2nd grade includes color temperature, it made sense to work that into the lesson. They will chose three colors for their shade and fill the space with line and shape.

Then we mist the artwork and watch the magic happen. (Yay, science!)

If you plan to have the students mount the work onto colored paper, you don't need to decorate both sides. But if you want to sculpt a base (and I think that would be SO FUN, but we just did a sculpture in 2nd grade) you would need to put a piece of scrap paper inside the filter while drawing on each side to protect the design from bleeding through.

I am loving the juicy, bright colors here. I think flowers and dragonflies on these would make them adorable if your school pushes a mother's day gift. You know...a little lamp from the light of their life.

If you want to teach this, but ain't got time for lesson plans, worksheets and powerpoints you can grab your own copy here.