A Perfect Square-Manipulating Paper

We read the book,  Perfect Square by Michael Hall about the transformation of a simple square in to several creative possibilities.

Following reading the story each child was given a 4 x 4 square of construction paper of a variety of colors. NO two students had the same color.  This was important because the task given to the children was to create something with this square using all of the pieces of it.  They were given scissors, textured scissors, hole punchers and glue.  They could also rip, crumble, bend, etc. the paper.  They could create anything they wanted to but they had to use every scrap of the original square-just like in the book.

                         

They used a piece of black construction paper to mount their pieces.  Then they had to write what it was on the paper using their sound/symbol knowledge.

Following the activity we shared our creations with each other paying special attention to the various ways the children manipulated the paper.

For a follow up activity to this we created a large class mural.  We tried to focus on making the paper 3D giving the piece a lot of texture using the same techniques, ripping, bending, folding, crumbling, cutting, and so on.