Title: Impression bowl

Age and developmental stage : Pre-Schematic Stage Kindergarten - 1 st grader students who have been introduced to the basic property of plasticity and permanency in clay material before.

Objective : Children will be given the opportunity to make a three-dimensional bowl by creating a pinch pot and learning about the ways they can manipulate the clay and make impressions on the bowls.

Materials : Clay, shells, variety shapes of pasta, leaves, pencils or thin clay tools.

Motivational Questions :

How can you create a bowl (functional object) with the clay?

What ways can we manipulate the clay’s texture?

Introduction/Art-Making:

Every student will get a small ball of clay to begin with. The teacher begins with

questions relating to textures, feelings, and manipulation.

“How many different ways can we change this clay?”

“What kind of things are you doing to the clay?”

Teachers can keep a running list of words about manipulating clay, such as squish, push,

rip, pull, etc.          

After students have a period of manipulation and experimentation, teachers will show

examples of pinch pots without use of manipulating the texture.

“If I wanted to change what the outside of this bowl looked like without painting it or

coloring it, and I wanted to use these tools to do so, how could you do it?”

Introduce uses of different tools and materials for creating texture, rolling, poking, things

of that nature.

Let students experiment with the various tools given, shells, pastas, poking tools and

other textured materials. Once experimentation is over, introduce the idea of a pinch pot.

“When I’m making a pinch pot, I’m going to start with my thumbs up, and stick by thumb

in the middle of my ball of clay. Then, I’m going to be able to pinch all the way around, until I

have a small bowl. Make sure you don’t push far through, or your bowl won’t have a bottom!”

“What does it feel like? How will you know when you’re done pinching?”

Once students finish their bowl, they should use the tools to create texture, pattern, and

decor that they feel fit.

 

Finally, students share what they created with their tables and what materials they used to

create texture.