Time flies when you're teaching 5th grade. Between having longer projects in general, having a student teacher, massive amounts of springtime testing, and random end of the year interruptions, we wound up not having time for both of these projects this year. I was forced to make a decision. Do I try to do a shortened version of both? Do I just choose one? Do I teach both at once?!? Yeah, I did that last one. It's surprisingly doable.
My 5th grade classes were split about 50/50 about which project they wanted to do. I've been trying to incorporate more choice into my classroom, so this was a good opportunity.
It couldn't have gone more smoothly. It just worked out that the days I needed to demonstrate major steps on clay, kids on the sewing project were able to work more independently. I was really happy with the outcome for both projects. I really didn't feel stretched too much at all.
Download my Tiki Mug lesson plan!
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| Tiki Cat! |
Without having a student teacher this year, I actually was able to fit in a 5th grade clay project! It had been a couple of years since I had done clay with 5th grade simply because I ran out of days in the school year.
For this project, I went back to a lesson I wrote several years back about tiki mugs. They were easy to construct since 5th grade students had done slab construction in 4th grade. The big educational addition to this project was the idea of both additive and subtractive sculpture with a slab form.
Students all designed their own tiki faces and used a variety of clay tools to create the finished mug. Students who were most successful used loop tools to carve away details for their mugs. The loop tools just make wider and deeper lines than our other clay tools. They wind up being more visible after glaze has been applied.
Download my lesson plan!
