After my first year of elementary art teaching I noticed that students rarely filled the paper they were given. To save my meager budget I would crop down the unused paper and developed quite a large pile of colorful scraps next to my paper cutter and was determined not to waste a single bit. This is what I call the hierarchy of paper.
low relief paper sculpture collaborations
and weaving
At the end of our weaving project, I still had piles of these precut strips that I had been hoarding all year. Those strips became the inspiration for the "paper loop" installation.
Wow. There were still strips left. Early finishers cut those strips into 1" squares for paper mosaics.
And when the mosaics are finished what about a Hans Arp inspired collage of chance?
Did you ever notice that some colors are more popular than others. I don't know why these kids are always giving orange and brown the silent treatment but that's ok because those sad unused tiles will become paper pulp. If you worry like me about your supply order not arriving to school in time for the first week of school, save your scraps and start with a dot day pulp painting.
Let's not limit our paper saving to the paper cutter, shall we? Whenever students are cutting things out of paper (and you know they are gonna cut right from the center, aren't they) you can save those scraps as well. 3-5 pieces of tiny scraps are a great way to introduce something like an Alexander Calder Planar Sculpture.
My students usually do this activity in stations and eventually work up to something more complex
If you're looking to maximize your budget many of these lessons are part of my Earth Day bundle. You can check it out here.
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