Kindergarten and 1st Grade Clay Projects

This will be a short post since the projects are basically the same as last year. 1st grade- Pinch pot animals! Last year I just demonstrated turtles, this year I also showed how they could use the same technique but make a ladybug (or other dome-shaped creature.) We talked about how many legs an insect has vs. how many legs a reptile has. It was good review. :)

 Kindergarten students made knee pots again. Make clay into a round-ish slab, then form over your knee to  make a shallow bowl. I did ask the students to carve in designs this year. Enjoy a few results!

This was actually made by a Pre-K student! I love his design. 

2nd Grade Clay Projects- Transportation

I was on a big kick of coordinating my clay lessons with grade level curriculum this year. I looked to the 2nd grade Social Studies units for ideas. They spend a lot of time on Native American tribes but I don't feel like I know enough about tribes from our area to do a lesson that wouldn't be stereotypical at this point. (I have been trying to research the Art of tribes that live/lived in NE Kansas but haven't had a ton of luck so far.) I decided to table that idea until I can find more information and instead, use the topic of "Transportation" which they also study.

At the beginning of the first class period, the students told me what "transportation"means and brainstormed different kinds. Gotta activate that prior knowledge! Then I demonstrated- I reviewed 4S attachments (score, slip, squish, smooth), pinch pots, coils, and showed how to form an animal starting with a ball and pressing in a "+" to divide the clay into sections which are pulled for legs. The students could use any hand-building techniques they wanted to sculpt any type of transportation. We had one class for building and the next for painting.

I thought a foot was clever- walking is, after all, a type of transportation.

Horses were pretty popular. The horse on the right lost its tail so we glued on yarn to make a new one.

This sail boat was made from a pinch pot base, a coil for the mast, and a slab for the sail.

 Some students included people, like in the canoe (with pipe cleaner oars) and on the horse above.

Cars were popular...

I love this helicopter.

We also had motorcycles, bicycles, school buses, an elephant (they saw someone ride an elephant before), a scooter, and even a flying saucer. You can see more in our Artsonia gallery.