Pinch Pot Animals

These cute pots were a challenge for my third grade students.  I used to make pinch pots with first grade but found that I ended up doing most of the work.  Pinch pots have always been challenging for kids in my art classes.  The clay either dries out from them overworking it, they have trouble pinching and turning as well as getting all of the clay pinched at the bottom without thinning out the side to much.  I love pinch pots and they look so simple but they are definitely not.  The extra challenge with these were making them sturdy enough to add animal decorations to.  There was a great variety of animals created and they did an excellent job underglazing them.  If you would like to see all of our pinch pots visit our online art gallery at:  http://www.artsonia.com/museum/gallery.asp?project=1072481

Fun Way of Displaying Second Grade Owls

Love the way the owls look on these cut trees.  It makes for a great display of artwork in the library.  The second grade students did such a great job.  Love the way they look in a group.  If you want to see all of them go to:  http://www.artsonia.com/museum/gallery.asp?project=1046948

Storyteller Dolls

Fourth grade students looked at Native American Storyteller dolls.  We talked about Cochiti Pueblo potter,Helen Cordero and her clay figure that represents her grandfather telling Native American Tales.  We also discussed the connection Helen had with her artwork and grandfather.  I asked my students to make a connection with their artwork like Helen. The kids did a great job on them.  We used an upside down pinch pot for the body.  Below is a picture of a few finished pieces.  If you would like to see more go to our school gallery at http://www.artsonia.com/museum/gallery.asp?project=1035988
Each Student wrote an artist statement about their piece.  Here are a few quotes they wrote about their work.  

Artist Statement (what lily3425 said this about his/her artwork)

This piece is important to me because this is me and my dad watching football my dad and I bond over football because every night we play pass with a football every time the patriots get a touchdown my dog Autumn gets a cookie.

Artist Statement (what Nagy2 said this about his/her artwork)

This piece is important to me because it is my mom and I when I was a baby. The hardest part for me was the legs because even when you scratch and attach, they still break off sometimes.

Artist Statement (what Beaulieu1 said this about his/her artwork)

This is important to me because I like soccer. Because it's fun. It is fun because I keep the Jersey.

Fourth Grade Clay Totems

Fourth grade just finished a challenging clay project.  I found these amazing clay totems at a blog called Ceramics 283.  The photos were so inspiring I wanted to try a version of this with my students.  It was definitely a challenge for them but they loved it.  If I am going to do it next year I will make some modifications for sure.  The most challenging parts were making a sturdy base and beads that would fit on the wooden dowel.
After looking at some of the totem photos kids sketched some ideas.  Some chose to do a theme and some just a variety of shapes.  Each totem had a base, beads and a topper.  The project took a lot longer than I had thought.  Many kids needed to restart their beads because the hole they made was to small.  The firing also took longer because I had to use bead racks and those take longer to load in the kiln.  We finally finished and the kids were happy with the results.  My students photograph all of their artwork to a website called Artsonia where they each have a digital portfolio.  They also have the option of titling their work and leaving comments.  I thought this comment summed up the project very well.

  

 

Clay Owls- Two different Ways

Second grade students created clay owls after working on their Owl Close Up pictures in cray-pa.  Last year we made these from slabs of clay and this year was going to be the same...until my slab roller broke and I had only enough for 2 of my four classes.  I looked online and found another owl project made more like a pinch pot and decided to give it a try.  I found this great website that had pictures of the process.  If you ever teach a project about birds this site is amazing; http://redandthepeanut.blogspot.com/2013/09/how-to-make-ceramic-pottery-owl-out-of.html

Both types of owls came out great.  I think the slab owls are easier for the kids but I think most of them would have chosen the 3D one.  They both allowed for the kids to practice attaching clay with slip and score and were a great review of adding texture and a great follow up to our 2D owl project.

Here are a few of them:

Clay Snowmen

Here are a few reasons why I love this third grade clay snowmen project:

• It is a simple clay project that can be made in one 40 minute class
• It is a great confidence builder and practice with slip and score (we say scratch and attach)
• It is a great project that reinforces molding and pinching clay 
• This project doesn't require a lot of clay or underglazes and glaze
• Nice review of firing process
• Great starter project for review before a bigger clay project later in the year
• The kids LOVE them
• They always turn out great

Clay Texture Hands

First grade students had fun experimenting with creating textures in clay.  Each students made 2 hands; one to keep for a small bowl and 1 to be part of a class bowl. I had a senior from the high school come and do this project with us.  She created the bowl with the kids extra hand.  The extra hand gave the kids a chance to experiment a little more.  They were also given a small piece of practice clay to use before they started with their hands.  This was also a great introduction to the clay process.  They learned about the kiln and the glazes.  
I saw this idea on Pinterest this summer and when I was asked to have a senior come and work with students I knew this would be a great project for it.  Here are the two links that I found on Pinterest. 

 http://krokotak.com/2013/03/three-little-clay-presents/

http://www.studioartsdallas.com/gallery-auction.php

 

Fourth Grade Coil Pots

My fourth grade students have just finished making coil pots.  They really enjoyed this lesson and their pots came out great.  The students were given one class to practice rolling and building with coils.  Groups of four or five students created one pot together.  Some of the things I asked them to focus on were; rolling even coils, making coils the proper thickness, remembering to scratch and attach, and building a pot that was stable.  The following art class each student created their own pot with the same criteria.  They were encouraged to be as creative as they wanted as long as the pot was well built and finished in the 40 minute class.  After the pots were fired the students sketched design ideas before under glazing and glazing their pots.  We also had some fun with the pottery app on the ipads.  I talked to them about other ways to create pots out of clay and showed them someone making a bowl on the potters wheel.  The kids loved using the app to create their own piece of pottery.  It was a fun connection for them.

Clay Owls

When I saw this pin on Pinterest I knew it would be the perfect project for my second grade students.  It was a great follow up to our mixed media owl projects.  I had done a similar technique in the past but we made penguins instead of owls.  The kids really had a great time making these.  They really looked closely at owls and how they could create some of the feather textures in the clay using found objects.  Some of the skills that we worked on were; creating texture in clay, clay can be pinched or pulled, and a review of the clay process; firing, underglazes and glaze.  

Clay Initial Tiles

One of our last projects of the year and a great review of clay techniques.  The kids loved this project.  They could decorate the tile any way that they wanted; change the shape, press objects into the clay or add more clay.  The only requirement was that they had to add an initial.  It could be theirs, a friends, uppercase, lowercase, both initials, ect.  I wanted to give them lots of freedom to be as creative as they liked.  I think this was a great review in rolling coils, attaching clay and creating textures in clay.
They really turned out great.  I will definitely do this lesson again.

Clay Birds in a Nest

In second grade our students learn about birds.  Each student is assigned a particular bird to research and create a board game.  I was looking on Pinterest one day and found these really cute clay birds.  Here is the link to the Etsy site:  http://www.etsy.com/listing/120121796/sale-clay-bird-sculpture-turquoise.

As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to make them with my students.  While making the clay birds we really practiced modeling the clay with our hands.  We talked about how we could push, pinch and pull the clay to form the bird shape.  I found a great graphic that I used to show my students one way to create the bird.  Here is the site where I got this picture.  I think it really helped the kids visualize the process:https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIJpvJb_wsAmgXm7JGBRIGUw6tl4hXDN_07JnfsGmMkoxwDxTXNrktmntmKzQIxcpEYW5CdfTkNxEyxCFcwSK4f6rZL5RUFMRhtMHjeFZo1dKE3-KNqBWkpe7tOoJiwCBXFiDvVvSET28E/s1600-h/genine4.jpg

I also found these great clay bird nests on Pinterest, here is the link: 

http://redandthepeanut.blogspot.com/2012/04/how-to-make-ceramic-pottery-birds-nest.html

 and decided to make those to put our birds in.  If you are a bird lover you should really check out her blog.  There are so many beautiful photos.  Each student got a small slab circle of clay,turned the edges up and added clay strings made from garlic presses.  It was great practice attaching clay.

The kids really loved making both the birds and the nests. We practiced lots of handbuilding skills. Here are some of our finished birds.  If you would like to see more visit our Artsonia exhibit Clay Birds.

Clay Orbs

One of my favorite artists from Durham, NH is Jane Kaufman. I love her orbs,  they are these organic spheres made from clay. She makes them in all different sizes. Her website is great and I love sharing it with my students.  She shares where the ideas for her work come from. I think it's important for students to see the process of an artist.  Check it out:  http://www.janekaufmann.com/orbs/index.html  

She has some great whimsical clay characters too.

Third grade students created their own Winter Landscape orbs.  We used 2 circular slabs of clay and newspaper to create the orbs.  We talked about how to transfer our two dimensional sketches onto our three dimensional forms. 

Artwork with a Medieval Theme

Second grade students had fun creating artwork with a Medieval theme.  I found two of these great lessons at one of my favorite blogs, Deep Space Sparkle.  Here is the link for the painted royalty lesson and you can also find her castle collage lesson there too.  
http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/2012/01/09/fairy-tale-kings-and-queens-art-project/

It was fun creating artwork with the same theme using different materials; collage, clay and tempera paint.  

 

Fun with Texture

First grade students had fun learning about texture by pressing objects into slabs of clay.  It is always so exciting to see the impressions that the different objects make.  Some of the favorites were the plastic bugs and bead necklaces.  This is part of our texture unit.  We created rubbings from objects around the room and texture plates, these clay bowls and also experimented with creating textures on  paper by rolling, crumpling and folding.  We used the textured paper to create relief sculptures.

                 

                       
                
Examples of Paper Texture Sculptures Grade 1