Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Tempera Cakes

I used tempera cakes with my Kindergarten classes for the first time yesterday.  I had never used cake tempera before and found that I really like it!  It is obviously easier than using liquid tempera, the students don't put it on so thick that it cracks and falls off the paper, and the setup seemed to be a little hardier than watercolor trays.  I wasn't paying much attention as I passed out the trays until a student said that it looked funny.  I took a peak and found that one of the cakes had molded.  I started to look through the others and found 5 or 6 trays that had a moldy cake in them.  I am guessing that they were covered and stored while still damp?  It seemed like the dark blue cake was the most common color.  I was interested in the different kinds of mold I found and thought they were kinda pretty.

I ended up just taking the cakes that were still good and putting them in a container for storage.  I threw out the tray that the mold was in because I wasn't sure how safe it was.  I left the trays uncovered to dry but I'm wondering if there is anything else I should know about using tempera cakes...




6 comments:

  1. katie, i love tempera cakes! i do recommend letting them dry in between uses... but never in my wildest dreams did i imagine they would ever MOLD! i think you did the right thing by throwing the trays away with all the allergies kids seem to have.
    another thing i always do with tempera cakes is inspect each set after use, and wipe any dirty colors with a paper towel. i have been trying to teach the kids to do this for themselves while they work, too.

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  2. I have never used tempera cakes, but I have had bottle of tempera mold, smell, and actually erupt when you opened them. All the brown I got from the county warehouse this year did that and had to be replaced.

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  3. Tempera cakes are nice for certain things, but I find the colors are more vibrant with watercolors. The cakes also dry with a "dusty" feeling to them, and that dustiness gets on fingers when rubbed-just an fyi for when you display them. The color would come off on clothes too, if the kids rub up against the art.

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  4. Thanks for the tips everyone! I think that so far, tempera cakes have stood up to my Kindergarten students better than watercolors! The older kids did better with the watercolor trays.

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  5. I haven't had mold on my tempera cakes, but then I never shut the t-cakes or my watercolors- I always store them open. And as for cleaning them...I don't do that anymore either. When kids get a dirty tray I say "bummer" and then tell them how to clean it themselves. Over the past several months the trays are cleaner since the kids correct each other and show each other how to clean the trays if they get messy.

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  6. I threw away the lids to my tempera cakes (I had never used them before this lesson) and always have to remind the students to leave watercolor trays open. Leaving trays open is hard on the kids that have to have everything in order but I try to explain the reason!

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