Clay projects are always the most exciting for many students. At Thomas, each grade level gets one clay lesson during the school year. 2nd grade classes had been making clay dinosaurs for the last couple of years. I saw that Ted over at Art with Mr. E did dinosaurs hatching out of eggs a year or so ago, so I thought that would be a fun way to change up the lesson.
4th graders have always done clay castles. It's the only lesson I wrote during my student teaching that I still use. It's a project that kids look forward to from 1st grade all the way up until they're actually rolling out the slabs in order to make their castles in 4th grade. It's a super fun and engaging lesson.
A funny thing happened this year, though. I nearly completely forgot to take pictures of the artwork for both of these projects. They were both completed right before the art show this spring and I passed them out having never photographed the work. I hate it when that happens.
Well, here they are. Three images of the elusive bigfoot 2nd and 4th grade clay projects.
Alright. It's absolutely frigid outside. The actual temperature here in Columbus, Ohio on Friday was -10. I couldn't feel my face during outdoor duty this morning. My view from my room is a massive pile of snow that has been plowed from the playground. It's Monday. We all need a little levity. For that, I present to you my finished example piece for my Art Club students. If a bright pink paper mache dinosaur head mounted to the wall doesn't make you laugh, I'm not sure what will. Enjoy.
It's that time of year again- CLAY TIME! I like to have a variety of 2D & 3D projects in the art show so I like to wait until spring to do many clay projects. This is the third year for 2nd grade to make clay dinosaurs. I think they've come out wonderful again.
This lesson is a nice step up for the clay skills of young students. In first grade, they make a pinch-pot based sculpture, so in second grade, I focus on attaching clay together by scoring and smoothing. This lesson could be easily adapted for nearly any subject matter and still teach the same skills.
A cool part of the display for these dinosaurs is the background. Last year, I cut some blank green mountains to fit the display space and laminated them. Kids who finish early can add background elements they make out of scrap construction paper. It adds a little environment to the display that really helps make the dinosaurs pop!
Click here to download my lesson plan!
Spring is clay time at Thomas Elementary. I like to have several ceramic projects in the spring art show and I don't have anywhere to store hundreds of dinosaurs, bugs, castles, and coil pots. (I really do come off like a male teacher when I look at those topics!)
I haven't done this project in a couple of years because of having student teachers so I was happy to get back to it. First grade always does a pinch pot based project, so this lesson adds new ceramic skills. The main artistic point of this project is the idea of scoring clay to attach two pieces together. At this point, you may be asking yourself, "Self, why isn't he having those nice children use slip?" To that I'd say, "Slip is totally unnecessary in an elementary classroom." I like to try to minimize potential reasons for unnecessary mess and time consumption. As long as the parts are scored correctly, all they need is a drop or two of water and a little smoothing around the edges to attach.
The backgrounds are just a bonus on this project. I'm probably a little too careful with firing my clay pieces. I like to give them at least a week to dry out, so I always have a little mini lesson in between finishing the clay and painting or glazing. For this lesson, I had kids make a couple of background elements. I just choose a dozen or so from each class to attach to the "mountains" that I made out of craft paper and laminated for later use.
In recent years, 2nd graders have made clay insects. As other art teachers know, it is nice to change up projects relatively often to keep things interesting. This year, 2nd grade students made clay dinosaurs instead! From a ceramic standpoint, this project focuses on scoring and attaching pieces of clay. This project took four classes total. On the first day, I showed a Keynote presentation with pictures of dinosaurs and even a short video. Each student then chose one dinosaur from a big collection of books and drew that dinosaur. On day two, I demonstrated how to make the dinosaurs out of clay. Students took two 45 minute classes to create their clay dinosaurs. On the fourth and final day, each student painted their dinosaur with tempera paints. Those who finished early made landscape elements out of scrap construction paper for our display. I really love how these turned out!