Peace Prints with 1st Grade

I was trying to sit down to write a blog post yesterday and I was thinking about how when the world seems to be in chaos, writing a blog post about kids’ art seems insignificant in the grand scheme of things.  I had a post about recent doodling projects my students made in the works, but that didn’t seem quite appropriate after the events on Sunday morning.  When something big like the attacks in Orlando, do you go on writing a blog post on your topic like nothing happened?  You can, sometimes it can be a nice diversion to read something happy that doesn’t involve Trump, shootings, gun control, extremist religions.  I was thinking about how more and more to me art education and teaching in general has a LOT more to do with teaching social skills, cooperation, tolerance, kindness and leadership.  In my opinion these skills and character traits are more important than learning the color wheel or how to shade a sphere.

My daughter’s school does the “Welcoming Schools” program with lessons and activities about diversity, being inclusive, gender stereotyping, bullying and standing up for what’s right.  She has come home talking to us about tough issues and I absolutely believe the seed for tolerance and compassion needs to be planted at a young age.

Pictures from this project were sitting in a folder on my computer and thought now would be a good time to show you a lesson we did this year involving peace.

I learned about the marker styrofoam technique and I saw Shine Bright Zamorano’s beautiful prints and this collaborative marker print project which gave me the motivation to do our styrofoam prints in this way.  I had to ask Don for help to get decent prints (and you can see his tips in the comment section.)

We started by reading The Peace Book by Todd Parr.  Everything by Todd Parr is just so great. The book gives lots of examples of hope and tolerance.  After reading the book, the first graders brainstormed ideas about what peace meant to them.  What is peaceful?  What does the word peace mean to them?  Next time I would add “How can we show peace to others?”  I let the kids come up with whatever they want.  Most came up with peace signs, friends, love, etc.  We had a stingray (someone’s favorite animal), a lake (a peaceful place) and a koala.

After the initial sketches, they were drawn onto Styrofoam Printing Plates.  We colored them with washable markers and used damp paper to transfer the prints.  Cassie Stephens has a great demo video here where she shows you this technique (about half way through the video.)  One thing to keep in mind when writing words is that they will print backwards, so you have to write the word backwards on the plate.  I gave the students a sheet with the alphabet written backwards for them to use for reference.

After the prints were dry, some of the prints were embellished with Sharpie markers or Crayola Metallic Markers.

This was my first time doing marker prints with a class.  Overall, I think the lesson was successful, but now I know tips to make the marker prints better next time. I think using smaller printing plates may make it easier for the coloring.  Thick paper with no texture works better and dabbing the water with a sponge helps too.  Peace was also a hard concept for the kids to really understand.  Their world is more about taking turns on a swing or sharing markers with the kids at their table.  Those beginning skills of thinking about others are the first step to raising compassionate kids.

Do you have any lessons teaching about peace or tolerance?

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