Survey Says: CLAY!

I'm going to be returning to my teaching schedule soon and wanted to poll my previous after school students to see what they wanted to see more of in the coming year and the media that won was: CLAY!

This is probably no surprise to some of you, but this means I am going to make a serious effort to include some awesome clay projects with this year's classes! This does take a bit of planning since I don't have a kiln--this means air dry clay it is. I have some plans for Model Magic, Crayola Air Dry Clay, and plans to test a couple of new (to me) air dry clays on the market. Any suggestions?

Another downfall: drying space. Since I'm "art on a cart" I don't have space to store the items safely where I teach while they dry. That means I pack all the clay items up, load them in the car and bring them home to dry until the next class. This stresses me out! I worry that one of my kids will get into them or the dog will knock them over. I'm come up with some good ways to transport and store clay creations in progress, but it will be nice when I don't have to worry about moving them.

So, without further ado, I repost this lovely "Forever Sandcastle" post I did awhile back. The lesson is from Family Fun magazine and is really fun for the children to make. Make one yourself and enjoy those summertime memories all year long!

Whip up a batch of air dry sand clay
to make a forever sandcastle of your own!

American Masters Shrink Art Bracelet

I am SO thrilled with this project! I have been trying to think of some ways to create a project where children could create a series of mini masterpieces after famous artists and then put them all together as one project at the end. My take on this: the Mini Masters Shrink Art Bracelet! A great project for a survey of art history! You could focus on whatever type of art history you'd like, or create a series of panels focusing on one artist.

In this project, I took 1 1/2" x 1 3/4" pieces of shrink art film (plastic) and created a series of mini masterpieces patterned after famous American artists. I had originally created WAY too many, but the final bracelet has 8 panels to fit my wrist. This is a lovely way to introduce students to basic jewelry making skills as well.

These are the tiles after shrinking, but before I linked them with the jump rings.
Can you name all of the artists? The first one is tricky since it is so dark,
it's a heart like Jim Dine...

The finished bracelet, all linked together. Some of the panels (above)
didn't make it since I only needed 8 for my wrist.

I'll be making a version of these with my Middle School students after school on February 8th. I'll post detailed instructions and their versions after that.

Enjoy!