Project Grade 3 Art & Music
Farrowdale Creek Watershed Quilt: A Grade 3 Connected-Squares Project
Over four sessions, each grade 3 student designs one square of a paper quilt map whose stream lines must join across squares to show a whole creek watershed.
Objectives
- Students will design one square of a class quilt map in which their stream enters and leaves at set edge marks so it joins the neighboring squares.
- Students will use thin and thick lines to show small streams joining into a larger creek.
- Students will use a shared color palette and texture marks to show one kind of land use on their square.
- Students will write a caption card that explains where the rain on their square flows.
Vocabulary
- Watershed
- A watershed is all the land where rain that falls will drain to the same stream, river, or lake. Everyone lives in a watershed, no matter how far from the water they live.
Also: ridge, stream, line weight, thumbnail sketch, palette, texture, composition
Teacher overview
Farrowdale Creek is a made-up creek, and the Farrowdale Creek Watershed Council is a made-up group of neighbors who want a large map of the watershed for the wall of their nature center. In this project the class builds that map as a paper quilt. Each student designs one square, and the squares only work as a map when every stream line meets the stream line on the next square, so small streams from the hills join and flow down into one creek at the bottom edge. The art work centers on composition inside a fixed square, line weight, a shared color palette, and texture, while the connected-squares rule makes the idea of a watershed visible in the finished piece. The final deliverable is the assembled quilt plus one caption card per student, presented to the class acting as the council.
A common misconception is that a watershed is a body of water, or a building that holds water, when it is the whole area of land that drains to the same creek or river. A second misconception is that each stream runs on its own to the sea. The project addresses the first because every square shows land rather than water, and the finished quilt shows all of that land draining to one creek. The line-weight rule addresses the second, because students must draw a stream line thicker after another stream joins it, so the quilt shows the water from every square gathering into one channel.
Teacher preparation. Before Session 1, draw the master plan on chart paper as a grid with one cell per student; a class of 24, for example, fits a grid four squares tall and six squares wide. Draw the creek down the middle columns to an exit on the bottom edge, and draw smaller streams from the top and side edges, which stand for the ridge, down to meet it. Then mark where each stream crosses the edges of each cell, and copy those marks onto that student's flow card as dots with the words "in" and "out." A few squares in the ridge row may have a stream that only goes out, and one or two squares may have no stream at all, which lets the student show land where rain soaks in and runs downhill without a channel. For the Session 1 demonstration, crumple a sheet of scrap paper, open it most of the way so it keeps its hills and folds, trace the high ridges with washable marker, and mist it with the spray bottle so students can watch the colored water run down into the low folds and gather there.
Project Brief
Driving question: How can our class make one quilt map that shows where the rain in the Farrowdale Creek watershed goes?
Who asked us: The Farrowdale Creek Watershed Council is a made-up group of neighbors. They want a big map for the wall of their nature center. They asked our class to make the map as a paper quilt.
What a watershed is: A watershed is all the land where rain runs down to the same creek. High ground called a ridge goes around the edge. Rain that falls inside the ridge runs downhill. Small streams run down and join each other. At the bottom, they all make one creek.
Your job: You will make one square of the quilt. Your square shows a small part of the watershed. When all the squares are put side by side, the streams must meet. Then the water can flow from square to square down to Farrowdale Creek.
Rules for every square:
- Your square is 8 inches on each side.
- Your stream must come in and go out at the dots on your flow card. That way it meets the stream on the next square.
- Use a thin blue line for a small stream. Use a thick blue line for the creek. Make a stream thicker after another stream joins it, because now it carries more water.
- Use only the colors our class picks for the land.
- Show one thing on your land, like a farm, a forest, a street, or a school.
- Keep small details away from the edge of your square. The edge gets covered when we tape the squares together.
What you turn in: You turn in one finished square and one caption card. Your caption card has three or four sentences. Tell what is on your land. Tell where the rain on your square goes. Tell about one choice you made as an artist.
Milestones
- Session 1: Learn the land and plan your square. Watch the crumpled paper test. See how water runs down to the low places. Read the project brief with the class. Get your square and your flow card. Fill in your plan sheet. You finish with: a plan sheet that shows where water comes in, where it goes out, and what is on your land.
- Session 2: Try three sketches. Draw three small sketches of your square. These are called thumbnail sketches. Try a new idea in each one. Move the stream, the land, or the big shapes. Pick your best sketch with a partner. Use the rules to check it. Then help the class vote on the land colors. You finish with: three thumbnail sketches with your best one circled.
- Session 3: Make your square. Draw your plan on the big square in pencil. Check that your stream starts and ends at the dots. Trace your streams in blue. Use a thin line or a thick line. Add color and texture to the land. Use dots for fields, zigzags for trees, or lines for roads. You finish with: a finished square. Hold it next to your neighbors' squares to check that the streams meet.
- Session 4: Put the quilt together. Tape the squares in order. Fix any stream that does not meet the next one. Write your caption card. Then walk along the quilt and follow the water from the ridge to the bottom. Show the council where one drop of rain from your square would go. You finish with: a caption card and a class quilt ready for the council.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Rubric
| Criterion | Beginning (1) | Developing (2) | Meeting (3) | Exceeding (4) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stream connection | The stream does not start or end at the flow-card dots, so it cannot meet the neighboring squares. | The stream touches one dot correctly but misses the other, or wanders off the edge in a new place. | The stream enters and leaves at both flow-card dots and meets the neighboring streams when the quilt is assembled. | The stream meets its neighbors exactly, and the student helped a neighbor fix a mismatch during assembly. |
| Line weight and palette | Streams and creek are drawn in the same weight, and colors outside the class palette are used. | Line weight changes but not where streams join, or one color falls outside the palette. | Small streams are thin, the line gets thicker where streams join, and only the class palette is used. | Line weight builds steadily from the thinnest stream to the creek, and palette colors are used to separate land areas clearly. |
| Composition and texture | The land use is hard to identify, the square is mostly empty, or details crowd the taped edge. | One land use is shown but is small or unclear, and texture is missing or the same everywhere. | One land use fills a clear part of the square, texture marks separate land types, and the edge is kept clear. | The composition leads the eye along the stream, texture marks are varied and deliberate, and the land use reads clearly from across the room. |
| Caption card | The card does not say where the rain on the square goes. | The card names the land use and where water goes but gives no design choice. | The card tells what is on the land, where the rain goes, and one design choice, in three or four sentences. | The card does all of this and explains why the design choice helps a council visitor read the map. |
Differentiation
Support
Give students a flow card with the dots already connected by a light pencil path, so the stream placement is settled and they can concentrate on line weight, color, and texture. Provide a land-use picture card (a barn, a row of trees, a street with houses) as a starting shape. For the caption card, offer the frame: "My square shows ___. Rain on my square flows ___. I chose ___ because ___."
Extension
Ask students to design the quilt's map key on a separate square: a small sample of each line weight, each land color, and each texture mark with a label. A second extension is a border square showing the ridge line, drawn so that a visitor can see where the watershed ends and the next one begins.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "ridge," "stream," "creek," "join," and "downhill" with the crumpled paper demonstration, pointing to each part as the word is said. Pair each student with a neighbor whose square touches theirs, so the edge check in Session 3 becomes a spoken exchange about where the water goes. Accept caption cards that combine short sentences with labeled arrows on a sketch.
Extensions
Invite a family night viewing in which students stand by their squares and trace the path of rain from the ridge to the creek exit for visitors. Classes that study their own town can later compare the quilt's layout with a real watershed map of their area and discuss which features the quilt left out.