Week 7: Intro to Printmaking! Reusing old and broken crayons!

For this week, I chose to do printmaking 101 with all grades: crayon rubbing! I removed the paper with a blade for quick turnaround, then gave several different lessons.
The Kindergarten were able to cut and tear shapes for both soft and hard edges, then place them under the paper for an abstract composition. This lesson focused on scissor skills for the third time this year, along with crayon rubbing techniques. They came out very nice and the students were able to identify the  shapes and the method of cutting vs. tearing.
First grade used leaves from outside the school for a nature infused lesson. We began by showing images of New England in the Fall, which they ooohhed and aaahhed! Next we watched a video on why the leaves change color from the website, Brainpop. They then traced a template of a tree and moved the leaves around to make multiple prints from the leaves. They were able to use scissors to cut and mount the trees on construction paper.
For the next class, I had them use their imaginations and place shapes under their paper and rub over the edges. For this lesson however, they had to combine the shapes to make recognizable images(abstract vs. realistic) like houses, animals or people.

The Second-Fifth Graders used rubbing plates and discussed overlapping and crayon rubbing techniques. I asked them to fold the paper into 8 separate panels, then use a pattern plate for the first rubbing. The next plate would then be either a bird or leaves, and overlap the patterns. This left us with 8 prints in total.
Next class, the students were shown how artist's mount their work. They cut, arranged and glued the panels to black paper with a border around each one. The work looked very professional and gave the students a sense of pride and confidence! Thank you for looking and be sure to recycle your old and broken crayons, there is plenty of life left in them for crayon rubbing! BMAC