K Textured Slab Creations
Check out a fun song about Texture here!
K & 1 Clay Mates creations and storytelling
Read the story ClayMates here.
Sing along with Emily Arrow here.
1st Grade Sgraffito Pinch Pots
The story that inspired this clay lesson was a Chinese folktale called, The Empty Pot. It tells the story of Ping, a boy who loves to grow things. However, when the Emperor asks al the children to grow a flower from special seed, Ping finds that his seed will not grow. He must present the Emperor with an empty pot. Students are asked to explain the lesson hidden in the story and to explain how they came to identify its secret message. Then students make their own empty pot.
Students learned how to create a clay pot by rolling a ball, opening the pot, and pinching the sides until they have the desired shape. Once students created their pot, they were painted with colored slip, a form of watered down, colored clay. Around here we call them Clay lady Paints. Once the pots were leather hard, students learned how to Sgraffito. The word sgraffitois Italian for scratch. Student's scratched designs into the colored slip to reveal the white stoneware clay underneath. The results were beautiful!
Learn more about sgraffito here.
Read the The Empty Pot.
2nd, 3rd, & 4th Grade: Facial expressions with clay
Inspired by clay artist James DeRosso, artists constructed clay vessels with expressive faces. They learned the basics of clay construction to create pinch pots or slab constructed cups. Then students embellished the creations with facial features by rolling, pinching, scratch & slipping clay bodies together. The pieces were glazed and kiln fired. Students learned that the shape and scale of the facial features, as well as the position of the features helps to communicate feeling and expression.
Learn more about artist James DeRosso here.
*B-week rotation also worked on weaving missed during the snow week in February.
3rd and 4th Grade: Hey Wild Thing, What's your story?
This lesson challenged students to reframe the story, Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak, to explore characters left out or marginalized by the narrator. Students created their own wild things complete with a back story and 3-D environment which they used to tell their character's story. Students presented their stories and offered an opinion on how each featured wild thing would feel about Max's visit. Students discovered that these wild things were not so terrible after all!
Read Where the Wild Things Are here.
In the Art Room with Dr. A.
