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Stamping with Foam Stickers

9/12/2018

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Here's a simple way to make your own stamps and printing plates: FOAM STICKERS. You know those inexpensive, puffy stickers that come in all sorts of shapes and sizes?

Their "puffiness" makes them a perfect diy stamp.

Supplies:

Foam stickers
Foam core or cardboard
Washable stamp pads

We love this process art activity for our preschoolers because it is a simple, multi-step process with great results, it challenges those fine motor skills, works on composition and planning skills, and teaches the concept of printing in a way that is completely age appropriate. #DoArtBetter

Foam Printing Tutorial

We used some shape stickers and these animal stickers because our story for the day was "Put Me in the Zoo" by Robert Lopshire. This silly book has a number of animal illustration in it so it was a good lead-in into our animal sticker collage.

Our preschool artists choose their animals and worked hard to get the paper backing off of the foam stickers.

A NOTE ABOUT THIS "HARD PART":
Please do everything you can do avoid doing this step for your kids. I know it's against our nature as parents and teachers. We just want to help, right? But, they need this finger workout. Don't take it away from them because we don't like to see them struggle with it. Learn how to treat a challenge in a positive way so that your little artists WANT to keep working at it until they are successful.

Our instructors always acknowledge when a task is going to be a challenge for the class. We tell them that it's going to be "tricky." That they are going to have to "work hard." We talk about "giving up" verses "trying again." We model how to use the tippy-tips of their fingers. We praise their hard work and determination. We celebrate when someone succeeds in a task. We acknowledge when friends help each other.

Yes, we're teaching art. But we're also teaching grit. And resilience. And determination.

We stuck our foam stickers onto squares of foam core. You could also use corrugated cardboard as the base. We cut ours 4x4 because that's what fits into our stamp pads.

We talked about composition and how the animals were arranged. The only "rule" that we gave our artists was that they animals couldn't be on top of each other. (Because an elephant could crush that little alligator, duh?)

Once our foam plates were finished, we pressed them into our favorite stamp pads.

Oh, you don't have a favorite stamp pad? Well, let me share mine with you. These stamp pads:

Are washable (like, really. Not just "kinda" washable)
Are HUGE (they fit a whole kiddos' hand easily)
Are refillable

Did you catch that? When they start to loose their juiciness, you can REFILL them with your liquid washable watercolors. GENIUS!

Our artists stamped their pictures onto different sizes of paper. We noticed that the animals printed backwards which led to a discussion of WHY. We noticed that we had to press the stamp evenly on both the stamp pad and the paper in order to pull a great print. It takes core strength and shoulder stability to all that printing! (Love when an art activity uses the big muscles)

In the end, both the stamp itself and the print were beautiful. We ended up trimming some of the prints and mounting them on black construction paper for a pretty presentation. But that step is completely optional. Because, it's beautiful just like this, too:

I hope you get to try this out with your class or with your kiddos at home! It's such a versatile activity that could because use with almost any theme (maybe even some holiday gift wrap!?). Let me know if your try it out with a tag on social media; we're @orangeeaselart on facebook, twitter, and instagram.

Supplies for this lesson:

Below are the supplies we used for our lesson. The washable watercolor are not needed if your stamp pads are new and fresh! We bought the animal stickers from Amazon. Everything else came from Discount School Supply. (Foam core was from Dollar Tree because you can't beat that price anywhere).

We're launching something new for preschoolers!

9/7/2018

So, we've got our online classes for the big kids now, but we need something for our littlest artists. Are you ready for this?

In January, we're launching a preschool ART BOX (name still tbd) that will have process art materials and curriculum for your 3-5 year old artists. We're taking the BEST of our Preschool Fundamental classes and smooshing them into a box, just for you. Learn art techniques and art history in a way that is engaging and age appropriate for your little artists.

Want to be involved in the creation of this program? Maybe do some testing for us? Watch this:

And then, join this:

Preschool Subscription Box - Launch Group

Facebook Group · 14 members

Join Group

Thank you for begin a part of our launching group! We're excited to get your feedback and ideas so we can create the best program possible. Here's a...

Exciting things are happening here at Orange Easel! We'd love for you to be a part of it!

Orange Easel

O R A N G E E A S E L B L O G

Stamping with Foam Stickers

Foam Printing Tutorial

Supplies for this lesson:

We're launching something new for preschoolers!

Orange Easel

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