2nd Grade Printmaking - Wild Things!

This project is a great one, but I can't take credit for it. Mr. Drew Jones, a colleague of mine, came up with this one a few years ago. Back in the days before we had kids to pick up right after school, a few of the younger art teachers in my district would get together once a month after school to share lesson plans and talk about what we were working on. I highly recommend doing this if you have the chance. It was like real-life Pinterest.

As you might imagine, this project is based on the fantastic book by Maurice Sendak. Where the Wild Things Are is one of those books that still totally holds up with students today. Each student comes up with several original sketches of their own versions of a "Wild Thing" before eventually transferring one of them to printing foam.

Kids love the process of printmaking. I really like the printing part of this project because it allows my students to be up and active around my room. I set up six stations with different ink colors. I have my students get two good prints the first day, then two additional on the second day of the project. That allows for plenty of time to have helpers clean up all of the printmaking supplies. The last step of the project is to cut out the prints, glue them to a piece of black construction paper, and write out the words "Wild Things" with construction paper crayons. If you haven't used construction paper crayons, they are pretty awesome. The are super bright on even dark paper and, get this, are ERASABLE! 

Check out the lesson plan here!