Kindies Complete their Commemorative Clay Plaques

Each year at my school the kindergarteners each choose a Mother Goose nursery rhyme to memorize and perform on the school stage. They can dress up if they choose but the goal here is for them to begin to learn public speaking skills. They are so proud of themselves, the parents are too, and this year I decided to have them create plaques to commemorate their experiences.

To introduce the lesson we talked about how many cultures make art to commemorate an important event, and that many artists also do so to remember personal moments in their lives. Next, students made a drawing of themselves onstage reciting their Mother Goose rhyme. Unfortunately I forgot to take pics of them, but they were really cute!

Next we talked about bas-relief and looked at examples. Students learned that bas-relief is a sculpture that is only 3D on one side, like a flat artwork that has a lot of texture on the front. 

The next step was learning how to use clay - patting out a pancake of clay for the base, making shapes for parts of the body and details, and then connecting them to the base using scoring and slip to make sure the parts stay together. The final step was glazing and they had a great time choosing their colors and painting on the glaze.

After they were finished I added pipe cleaners to hang them (I had made holes in the tops prior to firing just for this purpose) and then I created the wooden titles and hot-glued them to the pipe cleaners. And voila! I hope these become treasured memories for these kindergarteners as they grow up!