Clay Mania

To preface this, you might need to know a little bit more about me.  See I'm the type of person who doesn't take the time to match my socks, I mean I don't mind if they're different colors as long as they're on my feet what's the big deal?  I'm guilty of wearing socks and sandals, not just a casual 'I got done at the gym so I'm going to slip my sandals on.'  In fact, I LOVE wearing socks and sandals, there's no shame here, besides how else would you see my mismatched socks?  I'm also the type of person that loves the cold.  Don't get me wrong, I live for summer, but there's something so refreshing about cold crisp air, ya know the kind that makes your nose hairs freeze?  I'm always surprised when I'm out on a run in sub zero temperatures and I don't see anybody else...like HELLO where are you?! 

So now you think I'm crazy, besides the fact that I am on day 12 of 21 of not having coffee (guys, caffeine withdrawal is real, I repeat caffeine withdrawal is real)...well I guess I am crazy, but aren't all the best art teachers?

Well my craziness transferred over into the art room because I decided it would be a grand idea to have 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 6th grade all do clay projects at the same time!  I mean it does make set up a whole lot easier and we all know how messy that clay is so for the sake of cleanliness I just wanted to make one big mess at once and be done with it..ya dig?  When I'm at my other two buildings on my cart it also makes it so much easier to have all the classes doing clay at the same time otherwise I simply don't have space!  

I live in a no kiln world, so air dry is my method.  My room is filled with clay projects, It was almost like magic--I kept finding more and more places to put clay!  So now I've got all these projects sitting in brown paper sacks for the classroom teachers to send home at conferences next week, so it actually worked out quite nicely.

Because I do work with air dry clay and am only with each group once every eight school days clay has to be one day lessons.  No way can we save it for the next class.

2nd grade made these precious little flower plaques.  Texture was key in this lesson and students did such a nice job slipping and scoring that not a single one broke! Seriously?! That's a first.

I gave them the base, that I had rolled out.  But for a couple classes I forgot my rolling pin at my other building so this is me being resourceful.  But honestly it was awesome.

1st grade embarked on these little clay hearts and stars.  (I guess I didn't get any images of the stars, most students went for the heart)

I gave them a piece of paper like this and students filled in the shape with "snails" and circles, smoothed it all out, flipped over the clay piece and revealed all of the patterns.  Before students added oil pastels on top I dipped them in a watered down black acrylic bath.

Can you tell this student loves Ireland?

3rd grade made these coil pots with red Amaco air dry clay.  I'm trying to be more of a "yes [wo]man" so I let students use whatever color oil pastels they choice, but I'm thinking the method I tried last year worked a little better.

Well now I'm going to go into my classroom and drown in my piles of clay.  If you don't hear from me for a while you'll know where to find me.

Kindergarten Warm/Cool Colors Jim Dine Batik Hearts

Kindergarteners learned about warm and cool colors.  This really is a simple 2 day lesson that I really liked.  I did something different last year and I love these results even more!  

On day 1 of the lesson we simply drew a heart on a 9x12 piece of white paper and then discussed warm and cool colors.  Students were then given warm colored crayons first.  They were to choose if they wanted the heart or the outside to be colored in using warm colors.  I told them they could make patterns or just use the colors, BUT everyone must press hard and leave no white spaces.  When students finished with the warm colors students were given the cool colors to finish the remaining uncolored portion.  Most students were able to finish the coloring portion in the first class.

Day 2 of the lesson was the fun day.  I wanted the hearts to have a "batik-esque" look to it so after students got their hearts back they were instructed to crumple up their paper 8 times as if they were going to throw their paper across the room.  When I started crumpling my heart drawing the faces of those kindergarteners look horrified, but I promised them there was a good reason we were doing this.

After this portions as done students gathered around to see the next step.  Using watered down black tempera paint we painted over the entire paper and then using a paper towel the paint was dabbed off not wiped.  Students then got an orange or green piece of construction paper and glued their hear onto it. I then demonstrated stamping around the border with black paint to make hearts.  For some classes I used toilet paper rolls simply folding them in to make a heart shape.  The hearts that are a little longer I made out of strip of oak tag paper and stapled the ends in a heart form.  Those hearts did look nicer, but they were a bit time consuming to make.

Here are the lovely results just in time for Valentine's Day!

More Adapted Art Lessons

This penguin lesson was a spin off from the 1st grade penguin lesson.  To make the snowflake background I had a foam printing sheet that I had made snowflakes in and they used silver printing ink to print onto a piece of paper.  We used stencils to create the penguin.

This was our Valentine's lesson.  Using contact paper I cut out a heart shape and put it on the piece of paper.  Using bright green, blue, and yellow students simply painted the paper.  Using hearts made from oak tag paper students printed with purple paint over top.  At the end we peeled off the heart to see the surprise!