The other day my children were "visiting" in another classroom awaiting my arrival since I had part of the morning off. When I came in they were painting and gluing feathers to empty paper towel rolls which the teacher was attaching ribbons to and hanging up sort of like wind socks. When we left my kids begged to do it in our room too. I had no feathers but I have a huge bin of collage odds and ends and tons of magazines so I gave them glue, paper towel rolls (that I am sure every teacher hoards by the hundreds in their closets), and the collage materials and let them go to town. I figured that they would each do one or maybe two and tire of it, but I was very wrong. They made them for hours on two separate days!
I am not sure what fascinated them about making little collages on little paper towel rolls, although I just suspect that they were interested because it wasn't really like many other art experiences they had before. In any instance I had dozens of them and wasn't really sure what to do with them, but after a few minutes reflection decided that I would string them on clothes line rope and string it across the ceiling. This is an idea adapted from when I taught barely three year old children- they used to love to string paper towel rolls on a rope like beads on a string. In the end this impromptu project looked pretty cool- but more importantly they enjoyed the experience of creating them.
That is very cool! Sometimes it's amazing what the children will just BEG to do! Who would've known decorating paper towel tubes would be so fun!? (I love the idea of stringing them up for the children to see)
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