Submitted by B. Church -teacher at Teetersville School.

Objectives:

What You Need:

• Manilla tag (8 1/2 x 11) (poster paper or any thick paper)
• crayons
• black paint & paint brushes
• wooden skewers

What You Do:

1. First the children take a sturdy piece of art paper, I use manilla tag.

2. The entire sheet is colored over with crayon using a variety of bold colors. None of the manilla tag should show through.

3. Once this is completed paint over the entire piece with black paint. I use liquid paint without adding any extra water.

4. The paint should cover the entire crayon work, but not be so thick that it will crack when it dries.

5. Once the paint has dried, each student takes a wooden skewer (I use shiskabob skewers) and scrapes off a design.

6. You can have the children first trace a design onto the painted paper with a pen so that the lines show through, then scratch the paint off. We did this as a guided lesson where I provided outline sketches of a variety of owls, the students traced them and transferred them to their sheet.

7. The children loved the activity so well, that we then did the lesson a while later and they created a firework display of their own on their painted sheets.