Do You Remember the Time When We Fell In Love?

There was this time when I received a class with 26 students and 20 of them were boys. An entire ball of energy would emit vibrations of happiness when their teacher would line them up at my classroom door! What does a visual arts teacher do with all of that elementary energy?

TAKE THEM OUTSIDE FOR RECESS! - Just kidding!!!

So I have to admit that I spent a lot of time studying child and adolescent psychology, abnormal psychology and social psychology in undergraduate school. Our professional development team at the school had done a fairly good job of keeping us instructors up to speed on behavior interventions and strategies such as differentiation and understanding learning styles including multiple intelligences.

I'd written my lesson unit and planned my curriculum for this class. I was going to take them on a journey complete with drawing and painting, introducing the Elements and Principles of design with two-dimensional media. Well... let's just say that that lasted a week before I knew I had to retool my plans or else! Because let's face facts -- they were a little naughty. There was no way I'd survive, nor would they on cut paper, watercolor, tempera, and pencil on paper! I had to think fast.

CERAMICS! That's it! "Playdough" they called it. And thus... my first lesson: this is NOT

playdough. It's not mud and it's not dirt. Soooo, the sciences you say? They didn't but... I did!
I used videos and books to explain that clay minerals found in soil - this was tough because it sounds like a contradiction to the idea of dirt. Ohhhh boyyyys. Using examples I was able to let them observe the difference between porcelain, earthenware, and stoneware as well as everyday Georgia dirt and garden soil. I let them touch it, feel it and even suggested they could taste it! To that suggestion, I received a resounding EEEEUUUUW and lots of laughs!

I taught them new words that I kept on the Word Wall like the names of the different clays, plasticity, glazes, chemistry, and structure. I used metaphors and analogies that they could understand, like a Poptart's glaze and why it can withstand a hot toaster, and Koolaid that changes the color and taste of water. They got a kick out of that, and I believe it helped them understand the complex concepts better. I very briefly covered the chemical make-up of each clay mineral, its particle size and how that determines the firing temperature I'd use in the big "oven" AKA kiln, but they were second graders who weren't 100% sure they believed me -- that it wasn't dirt.

It worked... it was my greatest Jedi Mind-trick to date. I introduced them to all kinds of handbuilding techniques primarily because they were really excited about the bodily-kinesthetic activity. I had them use stoneware, primarily because of its durability. All of that energy was harnessed and focused on creating three-dimensional vessels and it turned out to be wonderful lessons for all of us.