Silly Hats

 Materials:

- Assorted colors of construction paper (one 9" x 12" for each child)

- Assorted colors of 1" construction paper strips

- Glue 

- Hole Punchers (Optional)

- Scissors

- Stapler

- Yarn

- Twelve Hats for Lena: A Book of Months by Karen Katz

I have to give credit to Art for Small Hands for this great project!

I read "Twelve Hats for Lena: A Book of Months" to introduce the lesson. It's a great book to review the months and it's perfect because the character is a little girl who crafts her own hats for each month- how artsy!

Prep (and yes, I did all of this prior to the lesson for the students):

1. Round corners of 9" x 12" construction paper. 

2. Tape center of sides for reinforcement and punch holes.

3. String yarn through holes. 

After reading the book, I explained to the students we will be making our own silly hats. I reviewed what sculptures are and discussed our previous lessons on paper collages. I demonstrated several techniques of what to do with the construction paper strips: folding, wrapping around a pencil, punching out holes, linking, etc. 

Each student then set off to do their own creations. I asked them to imagine they were making an amusement park and what shapes the rides might be, loopy, curvy, bumpy, etc. 

When the hat is filled with interesting shapes, cut a slit up the middle a little less than half way. Staple to form a hat. 

I usually don't repeat projects every year, but this project turned out so well and so cute, it will be a keeper for me! Some teachers even told me they did these at home with their own children. 

 

My favorite is when one student said, "I'm going to keep this hat on forever!"