Coil Pots by 3rd Grade

Blistering hot, but beautiful!

Coil pot madness! We have about 100 freshly made coil pots on display here at Thomas. This is our third grade clay project this year. It builds on the skill of attaching pieces of clay together that was introduced last year.

The cool thing about this project is that we don't just make and glaze a few coil pots, but we actually use them as small planters. Students could choose from tomato, marigold, or sunflower seeds to plant in their pots after they were finished. Students last year ended up with some viable flowers and vegetables, so I hope the students this year are equally successful with their plants. 

No lesson plan this time because it is pretty straightforward. I gave each class three art periods to finish building their pots and one day to glaze. 

3rd Grade Coil Pots with Plants!

I have great display space just outside my roomfor 3D work!

Whew! It has been a while since I last posted, but I have a good excuse. My art show was last Thursday so I have been a LITTLE busy. The good thing is that the art show went very well. There were probably 400-500 visitors to the show. I'm going to try to get caught up this week and hopefully post a few times. 


I don't truly know the reason, but I seem to change my third grade clay project nearly every year. 4th grade has always done castles, but third grade has had four entirely different clay projects in the five years I have been at Thomas. 


This year, I decided to have my students make coil pots. It was a construction technique that I don't teach to the other grade levels so it made sense. My biggest reason for wanting to have my students create coil pots is because I really wanted to have kids plant seeds and grow something in the pots. After the pots were glazed, I filled each pot with potting soil and gave each student a choice of seeds to plant. I think these turned out really nicely and my students are super excited about their little plants.