Printing and painting – with corrugated cardboard

Corrugated cardboard painting and printing

Themes: Books and paper, colours, dinosaurs and fish  (do the printing over a dinosaur/ fish shape or cut it into a dinosaur/fish shape when dry), recycling and caring for the environment by using used packaging material and shapes (cut into different shapes to print with) and hands.

You will need:
• Corrugated cardboard – thin ridges are more effective. Don’t make the pieces too big. They need to fit easily onto an A4 paper. I used some packaging cardboard  used to send a parcel. I was going to discard it.
• A 4 paper
• Paint – a few colours. Thick powder paint or ready mixed works best
• Paintbrushes
• Optional: Stapler if you want to attach the cardboard to the paper at the end

Process:
I cut the cardboard into smaller sizes to fit an A4 page with ease. The children painted the ridges of the cardboard (encourage this instead of painting in the ‘valleys’ or dips of the cardboard.) Using several colours gives a good end product.

Once most of the cardboard was painted, the children carefully lifted the cardboard and placed it paint side down onto the paper.
Using the flat of their hands, the children rubbed the back of the cardboard firmly to make a print.

They lifted the cardboard carefully and you have lovely multi coloured painting/print.


The children repeated the print without adding more paint and placed the next print at an angle to the original print.

More paint can be applied to the cardboard and more prints can be taken.
Once the printing was over I stapled the cardboard painting to the end of the print.

We had so much fun creating these prints.

The children wanted to make several! Have fun.

CAPS outcomes
Subjects, study areas, skills, content and integration
Life Skills   Study area: Creative arts
Create in 2D
• Drawing and painting using the week’s topic

Create in 3D (constructing)
• Fine-motor and sensory co-ordination: (eye-hand-mind) manipulation of scissors and other tools and equipment.
• Encourage development of skills through manipulation of the materials
• Simple printmaking techniques to create informal pattern
Art extra’s
• Variation of paper size and format: encourage working in different scales
• Informal use of art elements shape and colour in drawing and painting in response to week’s topic

Integration: Subject: Home language
Skill: Handwriting
• Uses a range of writing tools e.g. paint brushes, wax crayons etc.
• Develops eye- hand co-ordination through play e.g. drawing and painting
• Develops fine motor control using scissors to cut on bold outlined pictures and shapes etc
• Develops small muscles skills through finger play, e.g. play dough

     

Bubble wrap painting

Themes:Colours, Hands, Senses, Caring for our world

So often you receive parcels wrapped in large sheets of bubble wrap. I have a ‘well trained’ family and they all collect waste for me to use at preschool. So when my daughter gave me two large sheets of bubble wrap I thought I would put them out and allow the children to enjoy popping all the bubbles. This is a great fine motor activity and kept several children happy for some time.

 
I used the second piece and secured it to cover a small table. I set out paints for the children to enjoy painting over the bubbles which was a different sensory surface. Soon the colours mixed and they created new colours.

All was going well until I had too many children wanting to paint.
So I covered a second table with the other piece of bubble wrap and thats when “it got a bit out of hand” but it was a fantastic messy sensory hand painting activity. I poured some paint onto the bubble wrap (that’s when they abandoned the paint brushes) and spread the paint liberally until they had completely covered the bubble wrap in paint. They developed the large muscles as they used big sweeping hand and arm movement to spread the paint over the bubbly textured surface.

In the process of cleaning up I did have several younger children decide to hand print a few surfaces enroute to the bathroom!
Notes:
Best done outside
• Roll up sleeves before you start
• Have a bucket of water and a towel close by so they don’t have to go indoors to wash
• Take a deep breath and let the children enjoy making a mess.
• I would dry the bubble wrap and use it for a backdrop to some autumn leaves. • Use green and blue paint and cut out a big round earth for the theme caring for our environment and recycling

CAPS Outcomes
Subject: Life Skills
Study area: Creative arts
Create in 2D
• Variation of paper size and format: encourage working in different scales

Subject: Home language Skills:
Handwriting
• Uses a range of writing tools e.g. paint brushes, wax crayons etc.
• Develops eye- hand co-ordination through play e.g. painting
• Develops small muscles skills through finger play, e.g. popping bubbles on bubble wrap