Adaptive Art: Clay Wind Chimes

 I found a lesson in an art book on how to create clay wind chimes. The lesson was about pressing found objects into the clay to create texture prints. I wanted my Lifeskills class to make these, but I wanted these to be apart of themselves. Almost like the Kindergarten clay pendants are, with the student's pressing their shoe print into the clay. 

So therefore we used their wheelchairs for the printing. Myself and their teachers pressed the clay onto the wheels and anything else we could find on the chair that we thought would print, and also printed their shoes.  One teacher assistant actually printed a student's fingers into the clay. We also used objects and with hand over hand pressed designs into the clay. 

I think they turned out beautiful! I was very proud of these and excited when they took them home to share with their families. 

The clay is white and was fires at cone 04. Myself and teacher helpers glazed with a low fire glaze with one good coat, and with a wet sponge wiped surface off to give a nice contrast. Textures really popped! I glazed fired at cone 05. 

Thick jute cord was used to connect all clay pieces. 

 Great tire print

 I hung all up in the display case at school with photos of what we did. 

Clay, Clay, Clay

Third Grade cupcakes

Second Grade slab bowls. They are upside down over a hump mold (styro foam bowl) student stamped texture on these slabs, which you can not see. After bisque fire we will glaze and melt glass in these. 

Fifth Grade coil pottery

All my classes are doing clay right now, well except for Kindergarten. I know I am crazy. Here are some green ware examples on the kiln cart, drying slowly under plastic. I opened it up and took a pic. Fourth grade started today face pottery, those are GREAT too. I'll include later.

Glass and Glaze

 Have you ever melted glass in your kiln. Fabulous idea that I know most art teachers do, especially my fellow art teachers in my county. I tried it this year for the first time and the results are amazing. The student's were amazed and thought these looked beautiful. Especially these second grade slab bowls. By far one of the best projects I've done all  year. I purchased the glass flat beads, large and small from the dollar store. I had to visit there a lot because we kept running out.

 These are in display in the case outside of my art room along with lots of other stuff. As you can see some glass did not make it all the way across some of the bottoms. Which is okay. Each piece I thought was unique.

 Side ways view from bowl at top. It's hard to see but the sides were stamped before these were put on the mold.

 I really like the free form of this pottery. I encourage the students to lay the slab (after they rolled it out) on the mold and to NOT cut it in a circle.

 These are ready to be fired in the kiln. You can see they each picked out three colors of glass. Just enought to melt all the way across,on most.

 Bone dry bisque and ready to be fired in the kiln.

 Great pic of stamped sides and bottom. These slabs were laid on a styrofoam bowl, as a mold. We used slab sticks, rollers to get the correct thickness of clay. Then they were stamped with various stamps I made last year. Then they were carefully picked up and laid on mold. They were to gently push down slab to form it slightly around mold (bowl), but not to much. Names were put on these last with needle tool.

 Fourth Graders even picked one piece of small glass and put inside their face pottery for a pop of color. I like to do this lesson with clear glaze.It shows the details in the clay better. These student's could choose clear if they wanted, if they didn't want the color inside.

 Glazing with three coats, time for a glass bead!!

Animal Pinch Pots

 These cute little animals were made using a pinch pot. My third graders had a lot of fun chosing their own animal and building it with clay. I had a chart on board of several types (maybe 15?)of animals they could choose from. I had several that created an animal off the chart, like a penguin, bird, which was great!! These were glazed with cone 4 speed ball glaze. The bowl above is a bunny, which was made before Easter, I call it her bunny bowl.

 Puppy

 Frog

 Horse

 Pig

 Tiger

Turtle

 These are examples before fired in the kiln. I use low fire clay, cone 06

Clay Creations this week

Second Grade's Empty Bowl Project. Stamped pinch pots with coil added for a foot. Next week students and staff are welcome to purchase home made pottery with can foods. All food donations will be given to local food bank. Each student made two small pots.

First Grade Jim Dine Hearts. February lesson

I drew a heart on a sheets of card stock, copied on copier for a class set, and elaminated them. Students rolled long coil and layed it down on heart outline. Then they rolled balls of clay and put them inside of heart. After it was all full they smoothed the heart together, balls and coil. Then they wrote their name on this side,and poked a hole through top with a needle tool. Because the sheet is plastic it will hopfully peel off clay heart. Then to daa the front of the heart is shown. This texture is great. Do not let the student smooth that together. Some will try. I added raffia through hole for a nice touch.

Third Grade clay animal bowls. Students made a pinch pot and scored and slipped animal parts on.

Fifth Grade Goblets. Students made a pinch pots. Then created a coil foot, with coil embellishments on top. Full lesson: https://store.schoolspecialty.com/OA_HTML/xxssi_ibcGetImage.jsp?name=Sax-LP_Majolica-Goblets

These are some embellisments that I made for the top and sides of globet, for examples.