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Paper Bag Challenge

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Today, we are participating in the Paper Bag Challenge hosted by Tinkerlab.
(If you remember, we've done this before with magazines and cardboard boxes.)

Tinkerlab
Keeping with our child-centered philosophy, I plopped a giant pile of paper bags down in the middle of the floor and asked the children if they wanted to create and if so, what other materials did they need.
None of the three children who worked on this project opted to create together or make the same thing :). YEAH for creativity and giving the children an opportunity to venture off on their own, to enjoy the process and control their own products! 

(By the way, there has been an interesting series of posts over at PreKandK Sharing in regard to product and process for children. It is well worth the time to hop on over and check out the series of posts, We LOVE Paint, Children's Art Process vs. Product, and Making the Transition from Product to Process Focused Art.)
        "A" decided that an opened paper bag would make a fantastic canvas and she asked for some paints! She explored the canvas with liquid water colors and tempera paints. 
She completed a wonderful mural.
"D" decided that cutting the bags was a lot of fun. 
He spent most of our time just cutting, and cutting and cutting.
The sturdiness of paper sacks really makes cutting a bit easier than regular paper.
When he was done cutting, he assembled a ship! Complete with wings and a window.
Dane went to work straight away. You all know how much he loves critters.
He asked for some markers and created a dragon puppet.
He colored it in and used 2 tongue depressors to help strengthen and make it a stick puppet.
"A" and I tinkered a bit with some scraps of paper, twisting and folding it to make a rose! 
She decided that it  need some color and painted it up with some liquid watercolor.
(If you want a general idea of how to make a rose from a strip of paper, click here.The video shows the technique with Quilling paper, but you can easily use the same method with larger strips of paper.)

So, with all four of us tinkering and creating, we came up with a myriad of different things!


How would you create with a paper bag?
Join in on the challenge, you can find all of the details over at Tinkerlab!

You can also take a look at all of the ideas that some of these other participants made:
Paint Cut Paste, Imagination Soup, Hands On: As We Grow, Child Central Station, Putti Prapancha, Irresistible Ideas for Play-Based Learning, Teach Preschool, The Chocolate Muffin Tree, Nurture Store, Small Types,Make Do & Friend, The Imagination Tree, Toddler Approved, Red Ted Art, Kids in the Studio, Rainy Day Mum, Glittering Muffins, Sense of Wonder, Mom To 2 Posh Lil Divas, Come Together Kids, My Creative Family, Kitchen Counter Chronicles, A Mom With A Lesson Plan, Angelique Felix, The Golden Gleam, Clarion Wren, Living at the Whitehead's Zoo, Let Kids Create, De tout et de rien, PlayDrMom, Creativity My Passion, Kiwi Crate, Tinkerlab
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amy said…
Usually we all end up doing our own thing next to each other--it's so rare that we end up collaborating on something~so that was a fun change for us. I know how hard it can be to juggle the various requirements of several creating people, so nice job to the mama, too!
February 6, 2012 at 12:21 PM
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