You can use brown kraft paper or any large sheet of paper, and then paste torn newspaper over the paper. Each student should have access to a container of glue or acrylic clear gel medium that is thinned with water. One class can be spent simply building a thick layer of the newspaper. The students can choose from all the flags of the world. Some flags are older, some are new, like the United Nations' flag.
Students can either make up their own flag or choose to adapt a pre-existing flag to paint.
They can write an explanation describing the composition explaining the colors and symbols. Students should write about the reasons they borrowed and adapted elements of other flags. Read the attached article from the New York Times. It describes how the flag of the state of New Mexico borrows an image from a Native American sacred object. Discuss which symbols are appropriate and which are not.