2nd Grade - Mock Batik

This is the project I did at the very beginning of the school year, with second grade.  As I have posted before I like to do name projects as our first projects, because it refreshes my memory and they can all write their own names - thus everyone succeeds!! Hooray!

First day we practice bubble letters - both normal bubble letters then FUNKY bubble letters.  Funky bubble letters are the same as normal bubble letters, only you use fun lines like zig-zag, castle top, curly, etc.

The next class students got a final paper in which they wrote their name - normal, funky, or a combination.  Then they traced their name with a black oil pastel and added 5 lines that started on one edge and went off a different edge.  (A few students needed to add a few more lines to break up the space).

Next, I explained what a batik was (I tried to find a good video, but found nothing - if you have one let me know!).  I told them that other countries mainly used batik to decorate fabric.  The artist/worker would take hot wax and draw pictures onto a piece of fabric, then dye the fabric a color -- wherever there was the wax no dye would stain.  This process would continue till everything was dyed as desired.  In the end the wax was washed off with hot water and a beautiful piece of fabric was ready to be used.  I showed students some batik cloth.

I explained that we wouldn't be adding hot wax to fabric, but instead we would use colored wax to color our pictures.  I asked students if they knew what crayons were made out of - WAX!  I instructed them to color their pictures by pressing SUPER HARD and coloring each section a different color.  (They could repeat colors, just not next to each other.)

After their WHOLE pictured was colored, and I was pretty picky about having very little white space.  I had students crumple their papers into really SMALL balls 3 times - flattening it out each time.

Next, students took their wrinkled, but flattened paper to the sink where there was a cup with watered down temp paint (I did some classes with black - some with blue).  Students painted over their whole papers with the paint - then rinsed off the paint with a gentle stream of water.

What was left was nothing short of magic - their papers had beautiful colored wax, and the paint stuck to all the creases they made when they crumpled it.

Students oooo-ed and ahhhh-ed and showed their friends!

 I even had a student bring in a batik stamp from a trip they went on!