A few years ago, our state celebrated its centennial. For our annual art show the theme was going to be centered around this celebration. Therefore, I designed a bunch of lessons based on the state of Arizona. One of the lessons I created was a collaboration project that would involve as many kids as I could. We used bottle tops to create the Arizona flag and used pennies as the star since we are sometimes called the copper state. You could use this idea to make your own state flag and the buy-in would be great for all of your community. 
Everyone helped with this project in one way or another. First and foremost, we had to round up all of those bottle tops. I asked kids to bring them in. And in they came…and came…and came…and came! 
There were so many bottle tops I could have made several of these flags. The best part was that they were all different. The really little kids helped me sort the colors. 
Since this was going in an art show, I didn’t plan for it to be a permanent piece of art, although after I saw how it came out I wish I had thought of it that way. Also the structure we were attaching it to would be moved to the place where the art show was. So with those factors in play, I attached large thick black paper to the bulletin board that it was going to be displayed on and I drew with white pencil the outline of the Arizona Flag. 
In each space I wrote the color that corresponded to the flag design. My older students and I then started hot gluing the bottle tops on. At first I did all the gluing because I was so afraid to let any of the kids do it and get burned. However, my fifth graders set me straight fast and told me they were used to them at home and could handle it. Turns out they were right and they did a great job. Many different kids worked on attaching the pieces (an no one got burned…exhale art teacher). 
At first, I was intending to put brown bottle tops in the middle but I quickly didn’t like how that looked and came up with the idea to use real pennies since our state is famous for copper. This also created a neat effect because the pennies sat so close to the surface of the board and the bottle tops stuck out at all different depths. There was so much movement and depth in the final work. 
After the centennial show, I just couldn’t bring myself to destroy this work so it stayed on display in our office for a long time, until finally it had been touched and picked at enough that it was “time” to take it down…as much as it pained me, we did. You can use this method and create your state flag …and then show me, because I’d LOVE to see it!!!
Check out all of my art integration resources for classroom teachers, art teachers and parents HERE.
Other recycled material ideas you might like:
Thanks for reading and for making art with your kids!
Jenny K.