This was a one day project with Year 1 children to make A4 sized Aboriginal prints.  Although this sounds quite an easy project, the children had to realise that everything they put onto their cotton panels was going to overlay onto something else – which proved a useful introduction to colour mixing since a yellow background over printed with blue would end up with a green print.  I showed the pupils a wide range of Aboriginal prints and also how different types of mark making symbolised different parts of an Aboriginal story so that the children could ‘write’ their own story with their prints.  After some drawing design work, the children started on the background colours and making their own block prints out of card and foam pieces.

Background painting with block prints made by the children.

The children used the end of pencils with foam pads stuck on to replicate the traditional Aboriginal dots.

By the end of the day we had a whole room full of wonderful Aboriginal printed sheets which I then took away to stitch into a ‘quilt’ for the class.