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Clay Work In St. Declan’s NS

Over the past number of weeks in St. Declan’s the children have been busy working on the strand of Clay as part of our Visual Arts curriculum.

Junior and Senior Infants are encouraged to……………..
Use plastic materials for imaginative development by:Squeezing/ pushing/ pulling/ rolling a ball of clay, tearing and putting together clay
Make flat and standing clay
Make differing forms from clay (fat squat, twisty, bumpy)
Make a clay form to suggest a real or imaginary creature
Use different tools like matchsticks/cocktail sticks to create marks, texture and patterns on the surface and talk about these
Use other materials with clay to make a mixed-media object(s)-buttons, pipe-cleaners, lollipops, feathers

First and Second Classes are encouraged to …………..
Manipulate clay, impress objects into clay
Tear clay up and putting it together again
Make different forms
Make real or imagined animals, birds, creatures
Texturise their surfaces
Paint and varnish with PVA glue
Make and use clay oblongs for construction – design a dwelling or series of buildings.
Design, make and decorate a clay plaque with bits of clay, Texturise and colour and varnish (PVA) Look at clay work and describe the object, what was used to make and decorate this, how the children felt making it, how and why a craftsperson may have made it.
What he/ she was trying to say?
What the child likes best about the work?

Third and Fourth Classes are encouraged to …………….
Manipulate and make imprints of clay. Rejoin clay pieces without obvious signs.
Experiment with making non-representational forms and balancing themMake pinch pots, coil pots and coil and pellet pots
Texturise and decorating clay surfaces.
Make clay jewellery
Make clay figures from imagination
Use cubes/ oblongs of clay
Make non-representational forms
Make everyday buildings/ artefacts
Make simple forms from Papier maché
Use frameworks/ supports to make more complex Papier maché structures
Examine and discuss sculptures/ statues/ 3D formsHighlighting and discuss the balance and symmetry of a work and its overall effect
Examine pottery/ china artefacts (study of jugs/ the story of the Willow Pattern.

Fifth and Sixth Classes are encouraged to ……………..
Use the pinch pot technique for imaginative sculptures.
Use more complex textures, shapes, lines and patterns on clay when making sculptures.
Use clay slabs to make very complex structures.
Use Papier maché masks, heads, figures or puppets to develop themes.
Look at, discuss and research pottery and masks from other cultures and times Look at pupil’s/ artist’s work and discuss what the artist was trying to express- How the art elements were used to create a sense of balance.
Look at individual parts and how they develop the whole piece.
Look at complex buildings of the past and contemporary structures and use this information to design or make a model of an imaginative building.

Here is a selection of clay created by classes Junior Infants to sixth .