Lesson Plans

BLOCK PRINTING with WonderFoam®

3rd and 4th Grades

Objective:

• Introduce students to the concept of block printing.

Materials Needed:

• WonderFoam® Shapes
• 6” Square Pieces of Cardboard
• 6” Square Pieces of Paper
• Tacky Glue
• Water-based Tempra Paint
• Plastic trays for Paint
• Brayers or Plastic Rolling Pin

Introduction:

1. Show students a picture of an illuminated manuscript page.
2. Discuss how people called scribes once spent months, sometimes years, writing and illustrating a single book by hand.
3. Show students examples of famous prints by artists such as Andy Warhol, Stuart Davis and Albrecht Dürer.
4. Discuss changes in printing methods over the years, from woodblock and screen printing to Gutenberg’s movable type to inkjet printers.
5. Explain how each improvement in printing technology opened up books and pictures to more and more people for less and less money.

Procedure:

1. Have students create designs using simple shapes with pieces of WonderFoam®. If you are adapting this project for younger children, ideas such as flowers, ships and single objects are best. Older children may want to create more complex designs, such as buildings or town scenes.
2. Glue the foam pieces onto the cardboard. Do not overlap or stack the WonderFoam® pieces when applying them to the cardboard. Allow the glue to dry thoroughly before attempting to print.
3. Squeeze out two inches of water-based printing ink onto a tray and roll the brayer through it until the rubber is evenly coated.
4. Roll the ink over the WonderFoam® printing plate until all of the raised foam surfaces are evenly covered. Try not to get ink on the recessed portion of the plate.
5. Lay the printing plate, ink side up, on a clean area. Cover the plate with a sheet of printing paper and roll over the paper with a clean brayer.
6. Peel off the paper. Examine the print to see if more ink or more pressure is needed for a clear print. Remember to add more ink frequently to increase the print quality.

Guided Independent Practice:

• Divide the class in two.
• Challenge half of the class to draw by hand as many copies of the picture on their printing plates as they can in a minute. Ask the other half of the class to print as many copies as they can in a minute using their printing plates.
• Have both teams count the total number of pictures on each side.
• Show a few pictures from each team side by side to compare the print quality.

Conclusion:

• Ask students to explain why they might choose to make a print rather than draw a picture or write a book longhand. What are some of the things that the printing process does better than working by hand?.
• Explain to students that block printers first used wood to make prints because it was soft and easy to work with tools. Later, printers learned how to burn pictures onto copper plates using acid. Ask students how printing with a metal plate might be an improvement over using a wood block?.
• Ask the class to think of some examples of how print is used in everyday life.