Peter Anton Box of Chocolate Sculptures

This is a lesson I got from Cassie Stephen's blog. It looked like so much fun, I had to try it with my fourth graders. They loved it! We were too late for this to be a Valentines day project, so it ended up being an April Fools day project. The students took their time carefully crafting their faux chocolate pieces in hopes of pranking family members :)

We started out watching this video about Peter Anton. We then looked at more images of his box of chocolates.

On day one, students created a heart shape with poster paper. They laid the heart shape on top of cardstock, traced it, and cut it out. We used a few pieces of masking tape to tape the paper together and create the heart-shaped box. Students began adding one layer of papier-mâché using Elmer's Art Paste and recycled missal paper (similar to newspaper). 

On the second day, students finished up their first layer, and if their was enough time a second layer was added. 

After the heart-shaped boxes were complete, we created the faux chocolate! The chocolate was made by pouring 1 1/2 part Plaster of Paris with 1 part water. The students stirred the mixture up very slowly and then poured their mixture into two sections of an egg container. They then spent the rest of class time painting their heart shaped boxes however they wanted. 

On the last day, students painted the chocolate with either a milk or dark chocolate color and decorated their pieces with puff paint.