This was another project I gleaned from both The Skippack School (one of Christopher Dock's students enjoyed carving and made a print block to decorate a little book he made for his teacher, Master Dock) and The Landmark History of the American People (we were learning about Paul Revere's engraving of The Boston Massacre.)
I wasn't brave (or foolish) enough to set young students loose with sharp tools to carve wood, but I thought we could use plastic knives and potatoes, so we did. Here is how we did it.
Paul Revere's engraving of the Boston Massacre.
Sorry for the violence. I'm nonresistant, myself.
1. Cut potatoes in half.
(Here's a great way to teach your students how to spell potatoes, by the way.)
2. Use PLASTIC knives to cut designs into the potatoes.
3. Dry potatoes and apply paint to them with a paint brush.
4. Stamp the painted potato onto paper.
5. MUY IMPORTANTE: Wash the paint off the potato before adding another color or the colors will run together. I also found that I could do only one or two prints with one application of paint. After that the color got way too faint.
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