A Bright Idea for the Scrap Paper Tray
Dear Mrs. Martinez,
I love coming to art class every Thursday. Making paper collages last week was my favorite project all year, but during cleanup, I noticed something that made me feel a little sad. When the bell rang, many students tossed large, bright pieces of construction paper right into the recycling bin. Some of those pieces were barely touched! They had only one small corner cut off, or a tiny strip taken from the edge. That is why I am writing to ask if our art room could set up a permanent, shared scrap tray on the back counter.
Setting up a scrap tray would help our class save materials. Whenever we do paper crafts, we do not always need a whole giant sheet of new paper. For instance, yesterday my partner only needed a two-inch circle of yellow paper to make the headlights on a race car, but she had to cut it from a brand-new, full sheet. If we had a shared tray, she could have found a small yellow leftover right away. Saving those usable pieces means our art room will not run out of popular colors like bright red and sky blue before the school year ends.
- collages:
- Artworks made by gluing different materials, like paper or fabric, onto a flat surface.
- permanent:
- Lasting or intended to stay in place for a very long time.
- experiment:
- To try out new ideas, shapes, or methods to see what happens.
- frustrating:
- Causing feelings of annoyance or discouragement when something is difficult to do.
- shallow:
- Measuring only a short distance from the top edge to the bottom; not deep.
- volunteer:
- To freely offer to do a helpful task or job without being made to do it.
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Preview questions from this passageShowHide
- 1What main proposal does Marcus present to Mrs. Martinez in his letter?
- 2What specific event during art cleanup prompted Marcus to write this letter?
About this persuasive letter passage for 4th Grade
“A Bright Idea for the Scrap Paper Tray” is a persuasive letter reading passage about reducing paper waste in art class, written for 4th Grade. It takes about 3 minutes to read (498 words) and comes with an interactive quiz and a printable worksheet with comprehension questions and an answer key.