Printing With Geometric Shapes

 Gotta love it when the Math Coach cleans out her stash! I snagged a big plastic bin of these wonderful foam shapes from my one day a week school last year.

 

Thought we could make some robot prints with them. I inspired them with this wonderful book check it out here on Amazon.

The first week we used Elmer's to glue the shapes down to a piece of cardboard. (Donated by one of our parents at the school.) I really enjoyed hearing the children ask for the shapes by their correct name.

   

 "Anyone have a hexagon or a trapezoid?"

 

 

The second week we were ready to print. I set up 2 tables with brayers and tempera paint on styrofoam trays.  Had the drying rack ready and waiting for artwork.

  

I demonstrated with my document camera what to do. Then went to the tables to help students print.

 

 They pulled 2 prints, one after rolling on paint and then a ghost print. Which they really loved!

 

I kind of let students do what they wanted the first day, but the colors got muddy in a hurry and I decided they needed to choose one color.  I pulled a few students at a time to do this. That meant the students back at their seats needed something to work on or chaos would be the word of the day.....

They had some worksheets in their art folders and some drawing prompts to keep them busy. Still a little hectic...... but this was kindergarten and 1st graders, not sure what I was thinking. However, the looks on their little faces made it worthwhile.  I will add that I constantly wonder what to do with students that miss the first or second week of a project. This time if they missed the first week that had a choice to make a robot with the shapes or print out one of my samples. Unfortunately if they missed the second week, then they didn't get to print because we had moved on. I feel really bad about this, but I'm one person and they just aren't independent enough to handle it on their own.

 

When the prints were dry I had students embellish their prints with markers. Some came out great and some got scribbled over.  

I loved doing this! It was really amazing for students to learn that we can print without that big thing attached to our computers...........

What's your favorite printing lesson??

BTW anyone interested in buying Gelli plates for printing can save 10%

by clicking on the Gelli Arts button on the right side of the blog.

Thanks for reading!