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Black Dot Printing

We’re back again with a new featured author for the Virtual Book Club for Kids and this month’s featured author is Donald Crews – we’ve picked Ten Black Dots [affiliate link] as our book to connect with and have been busy getting arty using the black dots as inspiration.

Black Dot Printing, creative art project for mixed age groups of children creating pictures created with black dots similar to old style newsprint

I remember when I was younger being fascinated by newsprint, especially the photographs that although it was all in black and white they were able to show different shades and colours. It was in an art class in senior school that our teacher got us to investigate the newspaper with a magnifying glass and I discovered that the images were created by dots, the more closely positioned the dots together the darker the image the further away the light the image produced and we set about creating our own dot inspired artwork. Getting my preschooler and first grader to understand this as a concept would prove a little to difficult so I adapted the activity setting out different supplies to create our own black dot images

Ten Black Dots – by Donald Crews

The book Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews [affiliate link] is a fun counting and rhyming book for kids, like our art it uses the dots to create parts of images as it works through from one to 10 rhyming two different situations that the dots could be used like “two eyes on a fox and two eyes on keys to open locks”.

Materials needed

Black paint
Q-tip
Corks of different diameters

Container to hold paint
Paper
Black or grey marker

Creating Black Dot Printing

Black Dot Printing, creative art project for mixed age groups of children creating pictures created with black dots similar to old style newsprint

We started off with the blank sheet of paper and drew a scribble making sure that it overlapped and formed loops.

Black Dot Printing, creative art project for mixed age groups of children creating pictures created with black dots similar to old style newsprint

With a scribbled loop drawing I did a quick demonstration of printing – I provided my kids with q-tips and 2 different sizes of cork plus suggested that they use their fingers.

Black Dot Printing, creative art project for mixed age groups of children creating pictures created with black dots similar to old style newsprint

Explaining how we were going to fill one section with the same size dots and then move to the next section, I demonstrated so that they could see as well as hear how to go about this.

Black Dot Printing, creative art project for mixed age groups of children creating pictures created with black dots similar to old style newsprint

The kids then set about filling each section with different sized dots.

Black Dot Printing, creative art project for mixed age groups of children creating pictures created with black dots similar to old style newsprint

Younger and Older children

With younger children you could adapt this by using stickers of different sized dots or even just using q-tips but with different colours (I’ve had a request from my oldest to do this over the summer as he would like to create a colourful dot picture).

Older children – you could use the method that I suggested we did in our art class which is instead of using different sized objects for the printing use the same size but increase the concentration of dots to create lighter and darker areas in the picture.

More Donald Crews Book Based Activities

Check out these fabulous Donald Crews book based activities from the team that brings you Virtual Book Club for Kids.

Color Freight Train – 3 Dinosaurs

Shape Train Matching Activity – Toddler Approved

Freight Train Counting Games – Inspiration Laboratories

Black Dot Printing – Rainy Day Mum

Pattern Play and Numbers – Mama Miss

Three Truck Inspired Activities  – Lalymom

Learning your name Freight Train – Growing Book by Book

Paper Train Tutorial – The Educators’ Spin On It

Color Block Puzzles – The Pleasantest Thing

Black Dot Printing, creative art project for mixed age groups of children creating pictures created with black dots similar to old style newsprint

Author
Cerys Parker

Cerys is a marine biologist, environmental educator, teacher, mum, and home educator from the UK. She loves getting creative, whether it is with simple and easy crafts and ideas, activities to make learning fun, or delicious recipes that you and your kids can cook together you'll find them all shared here on Rainy Day Mum.

2 Comments

  1. I love how simple this activity is. I can picture my kids doing this for a long time! What a cool activity to incorporate with the book!

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