We are in between units and I wanted to do something a little different but still rigorous, exciting and challenging. I had these boxes and boxes of sorted colored tops for a mural I am working on with my 4th grade students and thought to have them make a rainbow. I gave the students a white 12"x18" inch paper and I had draw 7 "rainbow" lines on them. I demonstrated placing red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple tops in the correct order and sent them on their way.
This is an example of a finished kinder rainbow. It was hardworking to see kids get so excited about working with recycled materials and to see these mundane home items as something other than tops. In using non-traditional materials to make art students learn to see creative possibilities all around them.
They were all very proud of their creations.
For some colors we did not have enough for all students to cover the strip fully. Notice how this artist below solved that problem by evenly spacing or "stretching" out the color to cover the space.
At the end of the lesson students got to sort all their tops back in separate boxes. Again, a simple idea, but one surely none have done before on this scale. To a casual onlooker the class might have felt like total chaos, yet, each child was fully engaged in sorting their colors into their correct boxes.
