Face Pots, 5th Grade

 

Face pots are my favorite 5th grade clay lesson!  They turn out amazing every year. 

Students begin this lesson by creating clay pots using slabs. (I have my students make their own slabs. We do not have a slab roller).  Students then add details like eyes, nose and mouths. We also discuss the importance of scoring/slipping to make sure all the pieces stay connected.

These are amazing! There is also a great History Detectives episode that explains the history of face jugs.  I often show this video to my students at the beginning of this lesson.  

Outer Space Art- 3rd Grade

 

My 3rd graders have been rocking our outer space themed art lesson!  Their creativity always surprised me.  

For this lesson, students drew planets, space ships, comets, aliens, etc.  They used oil pastels to color their planets.  (We discussed the idea of blending colors with the pastels to make the planets look more realistic).  

After their planets were drawn, students cut their planets out, and glued them to a piece of black paper.  The white dots in the background were simply done by splatter painting.  

Prints, 5th Grade

These prints were made by my fifth graders.  Students carved into styrofoam and printed it four times. 

 This is the first year that I allowed them to experiment with multiple colors.  I was worried that the colors would become too mixed up, but the students pleasantly surprised me.  It turned out great, and I like the look of multiple colors!

Clay Cupcakes, 3rd Grade

My 3rd graders created these beautiful clay cupcakes.  Students used the pinch pot technique to create the top and bottom of their cupcakes.  The bottom of the cupcake was placed in a silicone cupcake mold to create the ridges, and look more realistic.  Details were added later.  It is important students score and slip all details, otherwise many pieces fall off.  

 After it was out of the kiln, we painted them with tempera paint.  These could also be glazed, but we chose to paint since glaze is expensive. To make them shiny, we added a layer of shiny acrylic on top. 

These are amazing!  This is one of my favorite assignments every year. 

Face Pots, 5th Grade

This is one of my favorite lessons every year.  Students use the slab technique to create face pots.

To introduce this lesson, we always discuss the history of face pots in America.  PBS has a great episode of History Detectives, all about face jugs.  I always begin by having my students watch this video,  https://www.pbs.org/video/history-detectives-face-jug/

Students then create their own face pots by using slabs and coils.  I always emphasize the importance of scoring and slipping.  This is the first year that I have not had a single eye ball fall off the pots.  I guess they listened well this year.

After firing, students glaze the pots.  I always tell them to use at least 3 coats of glaze.  I love these this year!

Warm and Cool Color Hands, 3rd Grade

This is an oldie, but a goodie.  I have been teaching this lesson for years.  I did not create this lesson myself.  I have seen it on numerous sites, so I am not sure who originally created this lesson idea.  If this is your lesson, let me know, I would love to give you credit. 

This lesson is about practicing patterns and warm and cool colors.  Students draw a pattern for their background first.  After this, students are asked to use either all warm or all cool colors for the background.  Then the hand is colored with the opposite. This lesson is simple, it looks amazing, and student's love it!

Ocean Silhouettes

 It's the end of the year, and I needed a quick, fun, and simple lesson. This lesson was perfect because it's fun, uses few supplies and takes little time. My second graders created these silhouette ocean scenes.  I found the basic idea for this lesson at: http://youngschoolart.blogspot.com/2016/10/2nd-gradesilhouettes.html?m=1.  This took two classes to complete.  In the first class, students created the watercolor background. We discussed warm and cool colors to create the background.  During the second class, students used black sharpies to create silhouettes.