There are memories I have from my early childhood that are so bright and vivid. Most of them are very positive and out of those the majority are about craft, arts, dance and music classes I took. Now, I may not remember the name of my kindergarten teachers but I do remember the activities they did with us, the playful time and even some songs and poems.

One of such activities I am presenting to you today, in Creative Tuesday SeriesPencil scrapings art. Perhaps in English there is another name for this activity (hence I could only find one reference so far from Dynamic 2 MomsFingerprint facts) ,so I call it just that.

This is how you do it:

1. Pick few favourite colour pencils. Prepare a plate (or few), a knife, some plain paper and cotton.

2. Scrape the lead of each pencil with the knife – you will get small bits of led resembling tiny crumbs. If the lead broke, don’t worry – just crush it. Note: this activity is appropriate for children above 4 years old. HOWEVER, I would advise not to use a sharp knife (I used a butter knife) AND this part of activity has to be strictly supervised until… you can trust your child completely to be with the knife alone 🙂 .

3. Take a piece of cotton, dip into the scrapings and rub against the plain piece of paper. You can do it in patterns. Or you can place a shape and rub around or inside of it to get a special pattern. We made a nine-pointed star as we were preparing cards to send out for Ayyam-i-Ha.

  

Variation: you can do this with glue (apply the glue on the area and sprinkle the scrapings over then leave to dry), glitter (the same method as with glue or just on its own – mix glitter with scrapings as we did!) and glitter glue (the same method as with the glue – sprinkle scrapings on top of the glitter glue). Use your creative imagination and have fun with pencil scrapings!