Me: What is etching?
Children:
Sketching?
Itching?
Me: Yes
We prepare many cardboard hearts ahead of time. In class, we all wrap the hearts in tin foil and secured the back with tape.
We etch lines and patterns and letters into the foil with a toothpick. We fill the spaces in between the etching with sharpie markers.
I offer the same provocation to the 2-4 year old class, and they busy themselves with tearing the foil with toothpicks and unwrapping all the hearts. This is not what I had anticipated or planned but sometimes art is subtractive and involves deconstruction. I laid out and taped a larger piece of foil on the table and the littles colored the foil and the cardboard hearts using crayon, sharpies and toothpicks.
