Gyotaku with 3rd Grade

As my 3rd graders are continuing in a unit on Japanese art (after making Japanese cherry blossom trees), we tried the Japanese art of fish printing, called gyotaku. We used a rubber fish instead of a real fish for many reasons, but the students still learned the concept. To reinforce the idea of printmaking, we make a border around the edge of the paper using a small piece of foam that the students had cut into a shape. The students dipped the foam shape into tempera paint, (using masking tape wrapped around a finger with the sticky side out to hold it), and stamped their border. Next in our unit on Japanese art is origami!