K & 1 Printed Snowy Trees

A few weeks ago before I started hating winter even more for not being over and refused to do any more winter projects, I finished up on this beautiful printing project with my Kindergarteners and 1st graders. I was planning on doing a printing project with all grades but things transitioned elsewhere. I already posted the 3rd grade monoprints and I did do a printing project with 4th too (I will post that as soon as I get them all hung up) but that is as far as I got with printing!

Pretty positive this project was my own idea and not from Pinterest which I am pretty excited about because they turned out beautiful! Maybe I was inspired by this Pin to use the cardboard for the trees. Projects like this are always exciting for me because I know many students have not done anything like this so they really get excited, even those who aren't normally as engaged as the rest of the class.

Day 1: First I read a story about winter with excellent outside winter illustrations (of course I can't remember the book because it was from the school library). Then we discussed what printing was, of course many tell me from a computer out of a printer but then we get to the bottom of it and talk about that kind of printing versus printing in art. My go-to is asking if any of them have used a stamp or done hand print art work and talk about how that is printing! (Oddly enough my 4th graders said a lot of the same things. Which makes me think that they have not done much printing with past teachers.) Then I demonstrated painting the trunks and branches with cardboard pieces and STAMPING not spreading the paint around. My Ah-ha! moment for this project with putting the paint on magazines and when they were done all I had to do was tear off the top page. Genius right!?

Day 2: Reminder discussion about what printing was again and then demonstrated printing the snow on the ground with 1 "show me 1" finger and a marker cap for the snowflakes. After students finished their snow I let them use up their white paint and other objects to experiment more with printing. 

McDill Elementary...

Jefferson Elementary...

 Kennedy Elementary...