Author: Glynnis

Lesson 2 Ball and Socket

 

Now that we have got pancakes, snakes and balls down,

let’s work on putting them together into slightly more horizontal forms. We can keep them on the pancake base but eventually, as the students get better at technique, some things won’t have to be on that.

 

Dinosaurs, Dragons and other Four-legged beasts

It’s always good to start with animals with naturally thick legs like dinosaurs, elephants, hippos and rhinos  ( as opposed to horses, camels and giraffes –I usually encourage the kids to make those last 3  “lying down”–kind of kneeling with their legs tucked under, as animals do)

For Dinosaurs and dragons and other small-headed, long-necked animals:

The first thing to convince the students of is to make the head, body and tail all one piece.  This is that “yam” shape that is really just a snake that ate an antelope! it is pointy on the ends and fat in the middle.

It helps to pinch it into the general shape firstthen roll it smooth

show the kids through example and then by placing your hand over theirs that they can hold their hand at a low angle to the table to achieve that point at the end.

Once you have a good strong yam, poke 4 holes into it

Roll 4 fat short coils or 2 coils that you then cut in half. Put those points on one end and tap the coil on the table to make the other end flat and wide just like a dinosaur or elephant foot.

Make sure they understand scale- that is, tiny skinny legs won’t hold up a big fat dinosaur, nor will giant tree trunk legs go into the holes you poked in the body.

Once the legs are firmly in there, encourage smearing- I say “erase the lines” but still, the concept of bonding the clay together is often difficult for them to grasp. As it is a key part of making the piece strong, it is worthwhile to spend a little time on it. I’ve tried saying “smooth the skin” and pointing out they don’t have lines on their skin.

You can even take their finger and use it as a smearing tool and they get a better understanding of the sensation and result.

Now you may turn your dinosaur right side up and bend the neck and tail to look more realistic. 

NOTE: I highly recommend curving the tail and especially back toward the body. This will make it stronger. Any time you curve the clay, it is stronger.

They can poke holes for the eyes- I always show eye sockets and I achieve those by facing the head away from me and pushing the clay back towards me with my finger.(sorry, a bit out of focus)

You can also “open” the mouth with a plastic knife or skewer.

At this point, more slots or holes can be made in the back and even tail to add spines or plates (as in the case of a stegosaurus)

a spike should look like this:

 

If you feel the legs are not well attached or the tail is too thin, or even that the head won’t stay up, it is time again, for the pancake. The dinosaur can “graze” or check a nest of eggs and therefore have its head down and touching the pancake and the tail also should touch down and end within the boundaries of the pancake.

special problems:

too dry:

You can take the “old” clay, dip it in a water and stick it in a sealed plastic bag. It should absorb the water it collected on its surface and that should be sufficient to re-hydrate it overnight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For short tails, they should always be pressed against the body so they will not break off.

REMEMBER: Any thin clay sticking out, especially straight out, is very vulnerable to breaking off and should be avoided.

T-REX

T-Rex is a special case. It is an immensely popular dino and as such, deserves special attention.

He is a tricky beast as he is much more upright and his big, toothsome head  makes him top heavy.

This time your yam should end bluntly at one end. 

You must “choke” him a little to define his head.

Then make two “ice cream cones” and flatten them somewhat.Now here is the tricky part, you must actually pinch out a kind of peg from the side of the fattest part- this is the upper thigh.

 Make holes on either side of the yam and stick those pegs in

bend the ends of the legs into feet and curve the tail so he can stand up. (I’ve started on his face here- 

But take the time to  smear part of the thigh into the body to keep him strong.

For the feet, cut a notch in the pointy end- this gives you your two toes. Don’t make them too delicate. 

Now you may make the face, make nostrils and  eye sockets as described above and put little balls in and poke a hole in the center. To make him look angry, you can push the brow down a little, this also holds the ball in better.

Now, open a large mouth. It’s good to have a pretty fat head so the lower jaw is quite thick. Now you can poke holes around the entire perimeter and insert tiny tiny pointy coils for teeth

. The danger here is that the kids spend too long rolling these and they dry out quickly and crumble. Encourage them to roll them quickly between their fingers and also you can put a little water to soak into the canvas mat and then the mat will absorb less water from the clay.

the mouth can actually be opened wider to accept the teeth and then closed to interlock the teeth- again, this makes them stronger. The teeth will poke out every which way giving him a snaggle toothed look. The students love this!

Now you can poke two holes in the chest,

make two thin snakes, cut the notches again for the toes and insert them for the T-Rex’s tiny front legs.and voila! 

Mr. T-Rex

First lesson plan

Philosophy:

I do not offer the children tools to begin with as they become fascinated with the tools and do not use their hands. I believe students should build their small muscle co-ordination as well as their confidence with the clay by having direct contact and learning to make the basic shapes that are the building blocks of most forms.

Because clay is stronger when rolled and compressed,  it’s good to teach the students to go through the steps to make the 3 basic shapes. 

These shapes can be used to make just about everything.

snakes

balls 

pancakes

One can make so many things with these forms! 

Then there are variations and combinations of the forms. As the kids become more proficient at making them, they can progress to the more advanced uses. 

Let me interject an essential note in here. It is not important for kids to make projects. For young children, the process is far more important than the outcome.

  But projects are also a great way to add value to what they are learning. If you are studying bugs for example, then it’s a vehicle to discuss how many legs or eyes insects have vs. how many spiders have.

1. The ball is  a great head or body as well as smaller ones for eyes etc. Often it is the first step that leads to a pinch pot or a round pancake.

Student’s favorite Ball project: a snowman

2. Snakes or coils as they are called, become arms and legs

and later, coil pots and  handles; thicker coils become the bodies of many things- 

the “yam” shape is handy for dinosaurs and birds 

“potato” for heavy bodied animals like elephants and hippos 

“carrots” become humans.

3. Pancakes are basically slabs and you can make many hollow forms with them but in the beginning, they also function as a great base for many kids’ projects and serve to support the often thin and fragile things kids make. 

Projects

Good first projects with balls, snakes & pancakes are:

bugs – bugs have lots of legs and eyes and the balls can be bodies- spiders, caterpillars, ants, etc. 

Octopus- again, lots of legs and a big ball for the head.

Turtles- throw the ball down on the table so it is a half a sphere – that is the shell, an asterisk of 3 snakes become the four legs, head and tail and a small pancake is the chest plate.

Porcupines and hedgehogs: have the kids poke their fingers into a medium sized ball to make many holes and then insert short snakes into all the holes. Add a face.

These are all ideas about getting the kids started but what we ended up talking about to the kids was 

“making the clay strong”.

I got this idea talking to the 4th graders. I am far too frequently asked things like “Can I decorate it?”  “Can I make a dog instead?”  or ” Is it okay if I paint it red?” These are questions of aesthetics.

“I am here”, I explain to the 4th graders, “to make sure whatever you decide to make doesn’t fall apart. In a perfect world, we would all go down to the side of the river and find some clay and you could all experiment for as long as you liked to see what would work and eventually through trial and error, you would figure out how to make things that didn’t fall apart. 

Unfortunately we don’t have that luxury.  You only have 40 minutes once a week. So I am here to help be a shortcut for you to learn about how to make your clay pieces strong.”

So when I was working with the kindergartners, I talked a lot about a piece being strong or not strong. Having a pancake underneath was a big feature. 

As I have been teaching for almost 20 years, I see certain recurring themes among early childhood  students and clay.

There is the Pieced together Really Long Snake (a favorite of my son) The student wants to make the longest snake ever.

Many enterprising students love the Parts of the Face

These are really just clay “drawings” and as such qualify more as 2-D but what is important about them is that students see they can make a shape in 3-D and flatten it into the appropriate shape in 2-D. 

A variation on this is the flat flower. I don’t have an example today but believe me, I’ve seen many.

A huge favorite is the Birthday Cake

followed closely by all sorts of food chief among them, a taco and a burrito and a hot dog.

Then there’s the clay “toy”. It could be a spaceship, a dinosaur or a race car. These are thrown together as fast as possible so they can be played with and they have very short lives.

The student must hold the head up but he doesn’t mind. This is a flexible moving thing he’s made- he doesn’t perceive it as something that must be fired and turned to stone.

As you can see from that dinoaur, children tend to think of living things in parts and they make them all separate and then attempt to join them together. It is sometimes difficult to get them to make the head, neck, body and tail of a dinosaur all out of one piece of clay which would make it a lot stronger (and more realistic looking too!) –I need to get a photo of that up

Animal  Families are another favorite. Note we had to keep adding pancakes under this snail family as it grew.

Well, we have only glimpsed the tip of the iceberg here in things to consider when teaching clay to young children. 

Perhaps you should sit by the side of the river and find out what works and what doesn’t!

To review:

Process not Product.

Good technique leads to strong pieces.

Students can always learn about more than just the clay; clay is ideal for tying in with many curricula.

But that’s a topic for another day!