April 18, 2011

What to do with a Coffee Filter?

What to do with all these coffee filters? I have a ton left over since I got one of these. Plus we go through coffee makers like crazy which leaves us with all shapes and sizes of orphaned coffee filters.

I have to give a shout out to my Momma-in-law who sent us a Keurig, and tons of coffee. She wrote a note that said something like "to help you through the late nights" which I thought was really cute!

Some ideas for those filters . . .

1. Cut them in half and have the kids draw RAINBOWS with just the primary colors.
Make it "rain" on them with a squirt bottle and watch the colors mix. Make predictions and observations. Finally make a landscape for their rainbows. Complicated? Not creative enough?

2. Make STAIN GLASS WINDOWS. First color the filter with markers then wet. Next, cut a black circle. Fold and cut it out like a snowflake and glue the colorful filter behind. Here's a window Kindergarten made last year. This was FUN.

3. Of course, the tried and true, FLOWERS. More crafty then creative?

4. MY FAVORITE! More of a review activity: A crazy color wheel. Students use red, yellow and blue markers or watercolors to color their filters however they want. Then paint them with water and watch the colors mix. This would be a good review this time in the year for grades who didn't do a ton of formal color theory this year. 

What do you do with coffee filters?


6 comments:

Phyl said...

Erica, I linked your post about the wedding at Artisan Works in a comment at my post. Thanks for the reminder - I think the place really needs to be SEEN - it's so hard to describe! I'd so love to have an 'event' there..

Meanwhile - I have a bunch of GIANT coffee filters) a gift from someone who works at the Nice & Easy. I'm thinking about coloring w/markers in circles/spirals/wiggly stripes, and then spraying w/water for a tie-dye look, and then cutting them into the shapes of T-shirts.

I've also thought about all the Chihuly sculpture towers I've seen,and am wondering how they'd work for that.

PLUS - ***IDEA!!!!*** We're about to make some papier-mache ice cream cones, and the filters will work GREAT for a final coat so I don't need to use gesso.

Barbara's Thought of the Day said...

These are pretty...

http://www.mirandamade.com/2010/10/preschool-project-coffee-filter-leaves.html

LT said...

Erica, I have awarded your blog "Versatile Blogger Award!" Click on my recent blog post for details. :) Wonderful work!

Unknown said...

I've thought of Chihuly with the filters too. I saw someone posted something about spray starch and Chihuly? My main problem is finding a way to make it relevant to kids (we don't have the Chihuly exhibition around here) and I'm not a huge fan of his work so I need to research it more and get more of an appreciation for what he does.

T-Shirts sound like a winner. Kids will get into that and you can do some art elements review maybe?

I love the Miranda made site thanks for sharing it with me Barbara! They are pretty cool.

Thanks for the award!!! So honored. Love your blog too. (someone and I'm afraid to say I don't remember who gave me this award I'm sorry I never responded, but I think I was having the baby at the time) I will definitely post my fav blogs too so there are more link-ups for people. I have a few new ones I'm following that might interest y'all;) too.

Paintedpaper said...

I would love to know what to do with those little filter cups too! Please someone come up with a cool project! :)

Phyl said...

Hey, Erica! Today I tested out my t-shirt idea and it worked really well. And I think a little color review will fit in great to make it work well.

I also tried the filter for papier-mache and unfortunately, the newspaper print showed right through. I need something more opaque or I'll have to do a coat of gesso on the ice cream cones.