Pine Needle Baskets and Quilts

Styrofoam Quilt

7th/8th Grade

Making our classroom quilt was a great experience in working with unusual materials and also incorporating math skills. We each started with a 9" (22.9 cm) square section in Construction Paper and some students took it further than the 9" (22.9 cm) square... dividing it into even smaller sections. Each Styrofoam square was cut into 10" (25.4 cm) squares allowing for the 9" (22.9 cm) design and ½" (1.27 cm) border.

After designing our square in paper and discussing the square as a whole with fractional parts, we transferred the design onto our Foamboard. We cut out our section paper patterns and cut our material to fit slightly larger than the colored section. We also left room for a common border around the edge of our squares. We used small kitchen paring knives to poke the materials into the Styrofoam. No gluing was required if the material was poked gently and evenly into the foam.

Below you can see how the Styrofoam was handled and material was attached. You can also see our finished project which turned into a fabulous sculptural relief quilt. By the way... remember what you are seeing here has NO GLUE holding it together!

Material is being cut to match up with the paper pattern leaving a ¼" (6.35 mm) border of cloth.	Cut material pieces are gently pushed into the Styrofoam. The material will stay in place on it's own without glue if done cleanly and evenly.
Here you see the construction paper sample that this student used to create his design.	Our finished wall relief quilt!
Pine Needle Baskets 8th Grade Our pine needle baskets were made from needles picked right outside our classroom door. We brought them inside, cleaned, soaked, de-capped them, and wove them using raffia as thread. We worked in class for a week... then students took them home to complete and return for a grade at the end of five weeks. These turned out quite nicely. Native American basketry and Civil War weaving were our tie-ins to art history.

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