Food Printing
To develop early printmaking exploration through safe food-based printing.
- Framework: EYFS
- Unit: EYFS Expressive Arts & Design
- Learning area: Expressive Arts and Design
- Level: EYFS Birth-2
Objectives
- Explores printing process
- Presses tool to paper deliberately
- Notices patterns made
- Shows interest in the result
Materials
- Halved fruits and vegetables (apple, orange, carrot, potato)
- Edible food colouring paint
- Large paper
- Aprons and wipe cloths
Instructions
Prepare printing by cutting fruits and vegetables in half to reveal interesting cross-sections. The inside of an apple looks like a star! Show babies the cross-section before dipping in paint.
Demonstrate: dip the apple half in red paint and press firmly on paper. Lift to reveal the star print. 'Look! A star inside the apple! Can you press it? Push... lift... look!'
Let babies explore at their own pace. Some will print properly; others will use the fruit as a brush, or eat it. All of this is valid exploration with taste-safe materials.
Name colours enthusiastically: 'Red apple! Orange carrot! Green pepper — what a beautiful green circle!'
Leave prints to dry and display them with photos of the printing process. 'Look — Isaac made these marks! He used an apple. Can you see the star shape?'
The experience is about sensory exploration and early printmaking — not the finished product. Process entirely over product.