January 2020

​Everyone has been participating in our clay unit over these past two weeks. In Kindergarten, the students heard the story The Pot That Juan Built which goes through the steps that potter Juan Quezada goes through to create his pottery. Mrs. McKay demonstrated how to make a pinch pot, and then we practiced making pinch pots with play dough. The next week we created our pinch pots out of clay. Boy was that clay cold and wet! In Ms. Natoli's class we created clay donuts after looking at American artist Wayne Thiebaud's work. We also illustrated the concept of size by making snowmen out of clay with small, medium and large balls of clay. In First Grade, we learned how to create a clay owl using a slab of clay rolled out with a rolling pin. We learned how to attach two pieces of clay together by using the score and slip method. Everyone had to think about the details that they had drawn in their sketchbooks while creating the owls. Ms. Wolf's class used the thumb method to create 3-D clay owls. The students squeezed the clay around their thumbs to create the owl's head and body. Second graders created clay sea turtles. The students practiced creating coils of clay and drawing symmetrical shell ideas in their sketchbooks. We looked at pictures to see what a sea turtle's legs and body look like. Third graders brought all of the skills learned from kindergarten, first grade, and second grade together to create clay fish using two pinch pots, slabs, coils, score & slip, and other methods. It is amazing to see what the students can accomplish with clay over their 4 years at Hilltop. The students make me proud!!