Favorite Places Painted Color Quilt

Check out my painted quilt!

To understand this project, first you have to read about the state-inspired color matching challenge I described yesterday, if you haven't already. OK, caught up? After mixing from each state's color palette, I used those colors to paint a set of six squares. Here is Vermont's:

When I'd done all six states and the paint had dried, I glued the squares together on a piece of cardstock to make this:

I scanned the six-block quilt, then digitally reproduced it to make the 24-block quilt:

Why? Mostly to give you an idea of what a classroom's worth of these quilt squares might look like (adjusted for the appropriate number of students, of course). You could make a quilt alone like I did, but I created it to be a group project for a classroom. I'm imagining a project where each student digitally creates a 6-color palette from a photo of one of their favorite places, mixes those colors to match, and paints them onto a square. When the teacher posts all the squares together on a bulletin board, you have a quilt made from everyone's favorite places. 

There are dozens of ways to extend this activity or integrate this project into other curricular areas. Students could write a poem to accompany their square, focusing on descriptive language to help the reader "see" the photo that inspired it. The class could go on a photo hike and take pictures around the school, or take pictures on a field trip, then use those as their inspirational pictures. They could use the same six colors painted in different orders to see how that visually affects the finished square. (It makes a huge difference.) They could create a palette based on their own clothing, skin, hair, eyes, etc. Constructing the squares themselves gives students math practice with rulers... or with digital programs. The possibilities are endless!