- fruit and vegetables (from previous explorations)
- markers
- paper towels
- plastic or foam trays
- tempera paint
- white construction paper
- fruit
- seed
- vegetable
MA Standards:
Language/L.PK.MA.6: Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, listening to books read aloud, activities, and play.
Head Start Outcomes:
Approaches to Learning/Persistence and Attentiveness: Maintains interest in a project or activity until completed.
Literacy Knowledge/Early Writing: Uses scribbles, shapes, pictures, and letters to represent objects, stories, experiences, or ideas.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
Science and Technology/Inquiry Skills 4: Record observations and share ideas through simple forms of representation such as drawings.
Fruit and Vegetable Stamping
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care (Jennifer Waddell photographer). All rights reserved.
Skill Focus: Creative Expression, Fine Motor Skills, Vocabulary
Educator Prep: Use vegetables left over from previous explorations. Cut cross sections of apples, pears, carrots, olives, celery, peppers, etc. Place some sections that still contain seeds on paper towels. Label each one. Prepare other sections for printing by removing the seeds. Place these fruit and vegetable sections on trays. Pour tempera paint into separate trays. Be sure to have the natural colors as a choice, but let children be creative with colors if they choose. Set up printmaking supplies so that children can work in small groups.
Safety Tips:
- Be aware of any child’s dietary needs and allergies before beginning the activity.
- Remind children to wash their hands before and after the activity.
- Remind students that the fruits and vegetables they are using to make prints are not for eating.
Tell children they are going to use fruits and vegetables to make stamp prints. Demonstrate for children how to lightly press a fruit or vegetable into the paint and then press it on the paper. Lift the stamp and show children the print.
Allow the prints to dry. Follow up at a later time by having children look at the samples on the paper towels and then draw or glue on their prints the seeds that correspond to the real fruit. Reinforce how the seeds are the part of the plant that holds what it takes to make more of itself.