2nd Grade Clay Fish

During our 2nd Grade clay project I learned quite a bit about the amounts of clay to use and how difficult the project was for 2nd graders.  MAN was this a challenge!!!  I learned that I had not prepped enough clay per student, that the project took longer than expected time wise and would require a lot more organization and prep from me in the future.

The First day
During the first day, we watched the video by Cassie Stephens on how to make our base and our fish.  We created a large "rock" for the base with seaweed springing from the bottom and our fish.  Paying close attention to the fact that this would be a 3D sculpture, we made sure both sides of our fish were matching.  I had the classroom teacher come to the classroom about 10 minutes before pick up time to help mark the fish and the base with the student's classroom number, i.e - the student is in Mrs. Longs class, she would put L2 on the bottom of each piece belonging to that student.

The Second Day:
Students found their two pieces on a table I had set up in the hallway and place them on a paper lined blue tray donated to the art room from the science department. (BTW....I love these trays and we use them OFTEN!)  Students had Color stations of Acrylic paint to walk between to paint their fish.  I had students put their name and teacher's name on their paper before painting.  When finished, I placed the wet pieces together with their paper on my rolling wire shelves to dry.  The next week, I bagged them and sent them to their classroom to take home.

Things I learned from this lesson:

This lesson take quite a while.  I had to nick 15 extra minutes from the classroom teacher to finish the first day's lesson.  I think next time I will break it up into a 3 day lesson.  Day 1 for the base, day 2 for the fish, day 3 for painting.  Also, the hole you make for the stick to attach the two pieces together needs to be over-sized.  When the clay dries and is fired the hole draws up considerably.  I spend a lot of time shaving craft sticks with an Exacto knife so they would fit.  You can always hot glue the stick if it is too loose, but let me tell you, shaving those things is NOT fun!