My students love clay, and over the years I have come to love it (if for no other reason, because their love of the material means I will have an easy class period anytime I get out clay). In the spring, I always seem to end up doing more clay projects. Kids are more used to clean up routines, so it goes more smoothly. Kids ask to make things they can give for Mother's day gifts and such. And as a practical matter, I like to use up all my clay by the end of the year so it doesn't get too dry and hard to work with; I know I could re-wet the clay, but I find it more trouble than it's worth.
I wanted to do a little work with my first grade students to practice hand building techniques. The challenge was to create animals using shapes cut from a slab. In my experience, giving kids the opportunity to build animals by assembling shapes to make the various parts helps to teach them the foundational skill of imagining complex figures as a collection of simple shapes. This is helpful in planning work across all media. In order to help kids get more variety to their projects and consider different approaches, I showed them three different samples. One approach was making an animal head. I recommended this approach if students were interested in making figures such as dogs or cats because small appendages such as skinny legs or tails would be too likely to break off.
I wanted to do a little work with my first grade students to practice hand building techniques. The challenge was to create animals using shapes cut from a slab. In my experience, giving kids the opportunity to build animals by assembling shapes to make the various parts helps to teach them the foundational skill of imagining complex figures as a collection of simple shapes. This is helpful in planning work across all media. In order to help kids get more variety to their projects and consider different approaches, I showed them three different samples. One approach was making an animal head. I recommended this approach if students were interested in making figures such as dogs or cats because small appendages such as skinny legs or tails would be too likely to break off.
The second sample I showed my students was a penguin. For an animal such as a penguin, fish, owl etc. it makes sense to create the full figure. This video demonstrates how a penguin could be created.
The final sample I showed students was a fish bowl. Many of my kids have a tendency to make small figures. They also can have difficulty making up their mind about what animal they would like to sculpt. The fishbowl (or terrarium) option allows students to make a collection of small figures all mounted on one larger slab. It allows for students to create not only an animal of their choosing but a world for that animal or animals to inhabit.
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