Sneaky Math: Toilet Paper Wreath

Every time I toss a TP roll into the recycling bin, I tell myself, "One of these days I'll come up with a craft to do with these things."  Well, my friends, let me tell you that day is today.  Thanks to the magic of Pinterest, I was able to find a site dedicated to turning TP rolls into a "high" art form.

For some odd reason, my girls had recently taken it upon themselves to start saving TP rolls.  I have no idea why.  But once I saw that pin, I put out an all call to gather in all the TP rolls hiding in the Ziploc bags under their beds.  

The raw materials

While they were hauling the TP rolls to the dining room table, I started planning another round of "Sneaky Math."  The idea is to get them to use math concepts without actually thinking they are using math.  Kinda like hiding the broccoli between a big potato and a mound of cheese. 

Using the ruler to measure to the half inch.

Most of the TP rolls conveniently came in a 4 1/2 inch size.  I had the girls make half inch marks across the TP rolls.  By flattening the roll to measure more easily, it actually helped to bend the cardboard into a petal shape.  It took them a couple tries to figure out the right markings for inch and half inch but by roll 4 or 5 they were marking the correct length without assistance.  Which freed me up to whip out the hot glue gun.

Everything crafty is easier with a little hot glue.

Now if you have the patience and some white glue and paperclips you could probably go that route but it would take SOOOO much longer to complete.  I suggest a glue gun and some adult supervision instead.  I cut the TP rolls to the marked size and then started gluing petals together.  Now at this point the math questions became:  "How many petals are in each flower?"  "If there are six petals to a flower, how many petals are there in two flowers? three flowers? ten flowers?"

The girls estimate how many flowers needed to finish the wreath
while I estimate the time it's going to take to scrub that pink and green
marker off the white table, sigh.  Thank goodness for Bar Keepers Friend.

As the flowers began to take shape and we started laying out the wreath, I began asking questions about estimating:  "How many more flowers will we need?"  "How many more TP rolls do we need to cut up?"

Once we had made enough flowers, the girls painted the cardboard using tempura paints.  It didn't take very long for them to paint the already formed flowers. I've seen other people's TP art spray painted....but I didn't have a can of spray paint so we used what we had and for this project it worked perfectly fine.  We let the "flowers" dry overnight and in the morning reassembled the wreath.  

Patterning:  white, purple white.

At this point I asked patterning questions.  I brought out a container of miscellaneous buttons and the girls decided to make a pattern of white buttons on purple flowers and black buttons on white flowers.  Then I had them assemble the wreath following the white, purple, white, purple pattern.  They discovered they had made a mistake with their estimating.  They thought they needed 11 flowers but instead 10 was what fit with the pattern.  (We adjusted by turning the 11th flower into an embellishment glued to the hook the wreath hangs from).  

I whipped out the hot glue gun again to glue all the flowers together.  Found some ribbon and a picture hook, and hung the wreath in the girls' room.  BTW, total cost for this project = nada....we used salvaged items from around the house.

Not bad after spending a previous life as a TP roll.

Best of all, I managed to sneak in measurement (to the nearest 1/2 inch), addition, multiplication, estimation, and patterning without any whining from the peanut gallery.  

Shared on Hip Homeschool Hop, Inspiring Creativity