The five-letter word I selected is “snowy.” Funny story, when I read this assignment I first thought it said any word so I selected “snow” because I love winter and snow goes with winter. When I came back through module four I was shocked to read five-letter word. This was an awful feeling as I had spent my afternoon carefully slicing out the letters for snow. For some reason I chose the sharpest knife I had. Not a good idea! I have to say, I didn’t enjoy this at all. As a primary teacher, I have never created potato stamps and when I saw the choices I wanted to at least try it out in hopes of one day using it in my classroom. Well scratch that idea. The process of cutting, trimming, lining up, making sure you have mirror letters was painstaking. I couldn’t imagine doing this in school as I would end up doing all the work. I will stick to the old-fashioned rubber stamps for now. The major thing that I found challenging was making the letters mirrored. I never thought to think that when I cut them out they would line up perfectly and right sided. When I started with the S I couldn’t figure out how to make it backwards. I had to cut it off and start again. It took me a couple of hours to create. I tried my best to make sure they were the same but I just couldn’t get the O to come out right and the N kept sliding. I feel that the mechanization of writing has improved the human race so much, thankfully we don’t write by stamping anymore. I couldn’t imagine the old printing press where they had to create letters and print newspapers.
Hi Tyler,
It might be possible for you to still use a modified version of this task in primary!
If you have access to linoblock, carvers, and paper (I think we used vellum or parchment paper in art class, but regular paper works too!) you can:
– Get the students to write the word on the paper using pencil. Make sure that they make the text really dark!
– Place the paper face down on the linoblock and smooth it out. Press on where the text is. You want to transfer the graphite onto the linoblock
– Now the letters will be correctly reversed on to the linoblock!!
– Get the students to carve AROUND the letters if they want to make a print like you.
– Get the students to carve THE LETTERS if they want to make a reverse print
I’m not sure if primary kids will be comfortable using carving tools, but you can remind them to cut AWAY from themselves and others. It will be a nice fine motor skill task for them
Also, this task isn’t limited to English text! In high school I asked my dad to write our last name in Chinese and then I turned it into a stamp using the method as above. It might be cool to see how text from different languages turn out.
Hi Linda, thanks for the message. I never thought of just doing shapes but that is a good idea for primary kids. I will try that.
Hilarious. Go look at my work. You’ll feel much better about your own . . . lol . . . as for the potato stamping, don’t do letters, do shapes that you can make from metal cookie cut outs . . . just press the shape into the potato and cut to it . . . ta da . . . I am going to use this . . . and my kids are 8-12. I loved the exercise, and it didn’t matter the mistakes I made, for me. It was the sheer enjoyment of cutting the potato, carving it out, dipping the potato into food dye (bad choice) and pressing. It was magical! Don’t give up. Best, Megs.
Hi Margaret, thanks for commenting. I never thought of using food dye or cookie cutters. I might give that a try with them. They love cookie cutters for some reason with play dough in class.
Hi Tyler!
I was surprised at first with your word choice but it connects with you and your passions fantastic! I am know thinking about incorporating this task into my grade 8 English class next year – carve one word to define yourself (usually they write it then a sentence then a paragraph). I admire and appreciate the difficulties being a primary teachers. I worry about a room full of even 13 year olds with slippery potatoes slicing into their hands. The Art teacher offered me lino blocks to carve letters instead when I mentioned the task – as Linda suggested. I also found the task time consuming and appreciate a more mechanized way of printing (using a computer makes editing mistakes even easier). Did you have to re-cut and re-cut letters? Wish I had taken a photo of the mistakes and rejects!
Hi Rebecca, thanks for your message. YES! I had to re-cut. It was awful lol. Especially when I had to dig them out of the organics bin and clean them to reuse lol.
Hi Tyler,
I think your stamps turned out great! I laughed out loud reading your summary. I chose to skip the potato printing assignment, and after reading your post, I’m glad I did haha. I am not “good with my hands,” so to speak, so I was nervous about cutting off a finger while trying to whittle letters onto potatoes. I didn’t even think of the fact that you would have to mirror the letters so that they wouldn’t come out backwards. It sounds like a lot more went into this assignment than I initially thought! Thanks for posting your summary – I feel like I have better insight into how this assignment would have gone for me if I had attempted it.
Hi Alanna, it was pretty scary. For some reason I used the sharpest little knife I had lol. Never again!
Hi Tyler,
It is interesting how easily we can write/make the letters of our alphabet, but try to write/make them backwards and we may really struggle. Why is a backwards ‘S’ so hard to conceptualize? It reminds me a bit of trying to say the alphabet backwards. I can do it now, because I was challenged to do it once and practiced a few times, but it is really difficult to do at first (at least for me). Our text and language has such a specific pattern and order to it, that any deviation proves challenging and confusing. It makes you realize that every text technology has very specific rules and procedures that must be followed.
Hi Brian, thanks for commenting. It was so hard, it didnt even cross my mind that they were supposed to go backwards. When I first did it I was talking on the phone with my grade teacher partner and told her how we should do this with the kids, then when I went to print the word and realized it was backwards I called her back and said no forget it!