This year, 2nd grade made some adorable clay sea turtles swimming in the ocean that everyone fell in love with. Since it was my 1st year teaching art at Burks Elementary, my new 4th graders were sad that they never had that clay experience. (I think it was the melted blue marbles we used for very realistic water that everyone was going crazy for.)
One 4th grade boy asked me if they could do something like that. I take personal requests for art seriously and will use their requests as a guide when I can. This time, I could easily pick the 4th grade clay project to be penguins in water.
They learned how to construct in clay, how to slip and score (scratch and attach and lick and stick – ha), and how to slightly hollow out a solid form so trapped air bubbles don’t cause their piece to explode.
They made them, I fired them. They glazed them and added the marbles. I fired them again and passed them back. They were excited to have some clay art with melted glass (water.)
Wow Art Project 
So you did end up doing this project again, even though you had said the year before that it was your first and last time!
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Nope 😂 We do more choice-based clay projects in 3rd – 5th grades now but this is an option if a student can’t figure out what to do.
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