Quilt Coloring to Bach

I love hearing about Math on a Stick that happens at the Minneapolis State Fair.  This year Annie Fetter @MFAnnie had kids coloring quilt squares.  I loved the idea and brought it to my classroom.  I went out and bought fresh packs of crayons because I wanted everyone to use crayons.  I decided to have my three Geometry classes color them in our 20 minutes after lunch block time.  Not many had time to finish, but some did and they are continuing to bring their finished quilt squares in.  I wanted to do it this week because Back to School night is tomorrow (Thursday, Sept 14th) and I thought we could make a quilt on my closet door to display for parents.

Quilt Pattern here

The word "crayons" brought up some debate in my Geometry class.  Is it "cray-ons" or "crayns"?

Even though they were new boxes, I still ended up with some broken ones because some kids color really hard.

There is a square within the square that I asked the kids to start with first, make the pattern there and then repeat in the other three quadrants.  The first square was no problem, but then it was hard to replicate - did they pick up the right crayon, did they color in their correct part.  It was harder than I thought it would be.

The hardest part was fitting the crayons back in the box.

I found some Bach music to listen to while we were coloring.  It was so nice and peaceful.  At first, some students thought it was weird or stupid but then they all got into it.  We could have used another hour to color at our leisure.

I think we all enjoyed our coloring time and we ended up with a beautiful quilt: