6th Grade: Crayon Batik

I'm starting this project with one of my 6th grade classes this week! I'm going to have each student draw something that is a plant (flowers, leaves, trees, etc.). For my example, I drew The Tree of Gondor from The Lord of the Rings. This project has really great potential if students can follow directions well!

Step One: Plan out/draw the plant on a 12x12 piece of paper. I used white construction paper. The paper, of course, needs to be white in order for this to work!

Step Two: Color in the design. In order for this to work, you will need to press hard with your crayons to create thick, waxy layers. Anything that you want to make black, you should not color in - anything left "blank" will end up being black! For some reason, I wanted my tree to be white. I don't need to tell you why that was difficult!

Here is my completed coloring.

Step Three: Crinkle that paper! CAREFULLY! Otherwise it might rip on the edges. I've done it a few different ways.

• Option 1: Crinkle and uncrinkle the paper around eight times.
  
• Option 2: Crinkle the paper vertically, horizontally, diagonally, opposite-diagonally, etc.
  
  Basically, just crinkle it a lot.

Step Four: Smooth that paper out to prep for painting!

Step Five: Mix black tempera paint with a small amount of water and paint the entire paper with it! Crinkling the paper creates cracks in the waxy surface created by the crayons. The black paint mixture will fill in the cracks - batik! I really saturate the top to make sure I don't miss any spots.

Step Six: With a paper towel dab the excess paint off of the paper. Do not wipe it off! If you wipe it off, it will smear black paint all over your pretty picture! Dab, dab, DAB! There should be no pooling of paint by the time you are done dabbing.

Step Seven: Set your picture out to dry! You're done! Gaze with wonder at the beauty you've created!

3D Paper Relief: Radial Symmetry

 

This project is seriously the coolest! As a class, we discussed different kinds of symmetry with a focus on radial symmetry. With our limited amount of class time (only 30 minutes!) It's hard to do 3D projects like clay, plaster, etc. This project allowed students to make something 3D and introduced simple origami folds. I pre-cut 2 inch squares in a variety of colors for my students. I used colored printer paper from the office rather than construction paper because it's so much easier to fold. My only rules were that it needed to have radial symmetry and, of course, craftsmanship!

Here are the folding steps:

Start with a square

 \

Fold into a triangle (bottom left corner to top right corner)

Fold the top layer's triangle in half: tip to bottom 

Repeat on the other side

It should look like this from above

Push the flaps down to be flat. The little triangle flaps will be where glue is placed.

These little papers should fit right into each other!

Students started gluing along either a "+" shape or an "x" shape. Some of my students were creative and came up with more complicated designs! Here are a few examples:

This last example is the same lesson, but accommodated for a student who struggles with fine-motor skills like paper folding. He was really excited once we figured out a project he could do with ease!