Bright Bread / Teachers' Notes
This project is a fine example of how we look at something day in and day out and don’t realise its full creative potential. Bread is great as a printing medium and is also easy to paint onto.
We used the cheapest white sliced bread - no need to spend up a storm. Pastry cutters cut through the bread slice very easily but you can also cut simple or even very elaborate patterns with scissors.
This project lends itself very well to maths since the bread can be cut up into portions,and then reassembled, cut with holes to represent dots on dice, or cut into basic shapes such as triangles, diamonds, circles and squares, etc.
Whilst experimenting with this project, and we just loved playing around with this one, we found that it is sometimes easier to turn the whole thing upside down so the paper is on the top. Then peel away the paper from the bread rather than peeling away the bread from the paper. The bread tends to tear more easily than the paper does.
Some children will find it easier to reassemble all the cut out and coloured shapes back into the slice and print the whole slice in one go. Others will prefer to do it all separately. Both methods work well.
As long as your children aren’t tempted to eat their gorgeous artistic creations, you’ll be OK. You will be surprised at how long these painted slices will last on display. Children are fascinated by watching them change as they dry out.
We are convinced that bread was really invented as the ideal printing medium as well as being a staple food!
Colour the Bright Bread Dude shown below.
Aims, Objectives & Outcomes
- Improve cutting skills
- Learn a new printing technique
- Link creativity to an everyday foodstuff
- Develop colour mixing and matching
- Understand more characteristics of a common material
