1ST GRADE: CLAY IMPRESSION DISK

 Clay is by far the most exciting art lesson for my students! This lesson introduces students to clay in school. They learn where clay comes from - the earth! And, they also learn many important characteristics of clay that they need to remember and techniques that they will build on as they move up through the grades.




The beginning of the lesson has the students rolling their clay into a ball in their palm. They learn quickly that it is wet, soft and cold! One important thing they learn is that the more you handle the clay the quicker it begins to dry out and crack. For the next step,  the students had to shape their ball of clay into a flat disk.....and the best way to do this is to throw it onto the table!!! What fun! They continued to throw it down, pick it up & throw it down on the other side until it was a flat oval or round shape.

                            Next the students learned how to press things into the clay to make designs. They found out that just about anything can be used including interesting shaped pasta noodles!! They also used various clay tools to draw designs.

After the clay dried for a week, students learned about adding color to their clay. They learned that glaze is a special "paint" only used for clay and that the glazed pieces had to be fired in a special oven just for clay called a kiln. They were amazed that the kiln had to get to 1800 degrees for the glaze to change color and get shiny and for the clay to become stronger!! Wow, that is hot!

Ribbon was added to allow them to hang.

I loved these so much I had to show lots of them!!!