Week 2: Storytelling with Foam Prints
Age 1st-2nd grade
Date 10/8/22
Teachers AJ and Liv
Learning Objective
By the end of the lesson TLW collaborate with other learners to make a linocut print of a page of a storybook without using any words.
Summary of Activity
AJ began class by welcoming students and reminding them of the instructor names (do you remember my name? etc.) Then he began the lesson with a full class warm-up activity looking at different animated images on the power point and asking students to share what they saw happening in the pictures. This was to get them practicing seeing that stories were being told solely with images. Then AJ briefly introduced 3 artists and printmaking artworks. Next, Liv introduced what printmaking is and showed students the brayer, foam board and pencil. She had students repeat “brayer",” and “relief print” back to her after she defined them and continued having them say the words as she gave instructions mad libs style. Liv demonstrated the print making process at one of the students’ work tables and had everyone gather around her. She showed students how to make marks/indents in the foam with a pencil and passed the foam around for every student to make a mark or doodle. She said once they were done, students would raise hands and have a teacher give them one color of ink. Then, she showed students how to roll the ink on using the brayer. Emphasizing that a teacher would help with the final step as well, she flipped the foam onto the final paper and modeled how to gently and thoroughly rub the foam so the image would fully transfer. Then she asked if anyone wanted to pull the print, and all hands went in the air. One of the students pulled the foam up and revealed the collaborative example piece. Students were excited and pointed out the marks they made. Throughout the demonstration and upon introducing what they would be doing today, Liv also showed another teacher example. As she held up her alien print and foam board, she pointed out that the words were backwards to begin with and printing would flip everything the opposite way.
To begin worktime, AJ and Liv handed out 2 foam pieces and pencils to each student. One foam was for the ink, the other for the print. Students were so excited with their visions that they began drawing and making marks in the foam as soon as they had it. AJ and Liv adapted by allowing the students to have complete choice over what their print would be of instead of adding the prompts after students began (originally students were making a wordless collaborative story and each table would draw in response to a one sentence prompt that represented each scene). Students were focused and engaged throughout work time and excited to move through the steps. Liv handed out ink by offering one color at a time and having students raise hands for what color they wanted.
As students began wrapping up (around 10:25am at the earliest) they made ghost prints/ second prints or went back to their free drawing. Liv assisted with clean up at the sink, having students bring the brayer and foam boards to the sink themselves. We kept the foam boards and the final prints, most of which were dry enough to stack at the end after students headed out.
Order of Events
Free drawing time
Lesson Introduction
Showed images and asked students to describe what was happening in them
Introduced print making materials, focusing on the brayer and relief printing on foam.
Technical Demonstration
students made the marks with pencil on the foam
instructor applied printers ink to the foam
instructor flipped the foam on to the paper
student pulled the print
Materials handed out
Work Time
Clean Up
Final Outcomes
Students successfully created mono colored foam relief prints and were able to (mostly) independently follow the step by step process of print making. They had full choice when it came to what their print would be of and about so there was a range of resulting subjects from aliens to houses to pumpkins. Students were engaged with the work and excited to begin. They also learned what a relief print is, what a brayer is and what it does. They were able to explore image reversal in the print making process, and some even practiced writing backwards to get intentional results. There were some individual conversations about storytelling as well. Using the example book, Goodnight Gorilla, I asked students what the story was about, then pointed out that there are few words in the book so the story is mainly told through pictures showing the power of images. I reminded students they could create a story using only pictures and they could practice this in print making. Print making is quite the process, so having students simply practice that as a skill is a great introduction to this medium. This lesson would be a good preface leading into a print making lesson around a specific theme.
Highlights
clean up on time!
Students learned the print making process
tons of student choice in what to draw
students were focused and excited
Future Modifications
I would modify this particular lesson by waiting to hand out materials until the lesson prompts were fully introduced. The students were eager to begin working which is a great thing- but led to them beginning before there was a chance to assign the prompt they would draw for. This impacted the thought provoking outcomes of the lesson and decreased the teaching around storytelling. Students lost the opportunity to think more deeply about what they were making. Free choice had already occurred during free drawing and the structure put in place with storytelling would have given students a new perspective on what images can communicate. That being said, I would use this lesson as an introduction into print making for this age group. It was a concise, quick way to effectively teach the print making process and concepts.
Finally, I would change the introduction into the lesson by incorporating the example print artworks and/or the story books by having students assess what stories they were telling. This would efficiently engage the students with the theme of the lesson and the medium right away. I like the idea of using wordless stories to show students the power of images as a storytelling tool that doesn’t necessarily need words for context. I can see the possibility of using wordless storybooks in my future classroom as the hook for lessons across different mediums.
Overall Modifications
hand out materials after all of the instructions
use this lesson as an introduction into printmaking for young students
use the example artworks and/or storybooks in the introductory examples around storytelling
