Ceramic Pinch Pot & Coil Method Fish an Intro to Working with Clay

This lesson acts as an introduction to working with clay and covers two basic building methods, pinch pot and coil. The project is a great starting point to working with ceramics and it covers the basic vocabulary studnts need to know when working with clay: Glaze, Kiln, Green Ware, Leather Hard, Bone Dry, Stains and Various Ceramic Hand Tools (needle, knife, wooden rib etc.).

Like many of my other lessons on TPT this lesson includes and prezi presentation that breaks down the steps that should be taken to build a pinch pot fish as well as introducing a contemporary artists who creates similar fish sculptures for a living.

8th grader's lesson:

~Use a ball of clay the size of your fist for each side of the pinch pot fish

9th-10th:

~Same as the 8th graders but use more clay to create a larger fish (use balls larger than your fist)

~Include more details and textures to the exterior of the fish and consider anatomy

Here is a break down of the resources that I have included in this lesson:

Lesson Plan- This has the lesson broken down into easy to understand steps and includes a list of materials needed and approximately how long the lesson should take to introduce.The key terms used in the lesson are included and there is also a section explaining how to accommodate to students with IEP's.

Prezi Presentation- At the top of the lesson plan is a link to the prezi presentation that i created, you will need an internet connection to present it or you can download it to be used offline (just ask and i can instruct you how to do this). The prezi introduces a contemporary fish ceramists and has great illustrations of the step that should be taken to create a pinch pot fish.

Rubric- I pass this rubric out at the beginning of each lesson so students understand what they will be graded on and what is expected of them. If you'd like to adapt the lesson to more advanced students have them include, values, shadows, 10+ buildings and other small details in their city. The rubric is front and back and only takes up half a sheet of paper, it also has a self reflective part at the end for students to fill out. Students should turn the rubric in with their finished project and I will put their final grade on it and return them both.

Student Examples- There is a folder with over 40 student examples in it and they range from beginner to advanced and some projects are in the middle stages so you can see what the process looks like. These are nice to show the students so they can see what is possible by looking at the different colors, techniques and patterns used on their fish sculptures. I made sure to document this lesson well and all of the example photographs show different angles of each fish.

* ALL documents are in Word "doc." format so they can be tweaked and edited to your liking.

Cheers