Managing clay in a choice based art room

When I transitioned into a choice-based art approach, clay aka "mud that magically turns into cool stuff" was what I considered the Final Frontier of my choice journey.  How on earth do TAB art teachers do it without wasting resources or destroying the art room?

I have spent the last few years creating resources to use in my art room.  I do modified choice, so we have a Clay Studio Center but we also do whole class projects with loads of choice embedded in. Those resources can be found here.

In short, it's my job to teach the skills while the kids are in charge of the ideas. I do this through skill builders-- mini lessons that teach skills explicitly. The skill builders progress in complexity as the students move through the grade levels--  and yes we practice the skills together as a whole class. It's important to note that a skill builder isn't necessarily a finished project-- they are usually small so we don't waste resources and most of the time we just recycle the clay instead of firing it.

Ask yourself: What skills do I want them to learn? If Grade 1 is learning to make pinch pots, great!  Do they have to be apple pinch pots (or Jack-o-Lanterns or Greek Urns...) can I consciously take a step back (take a deep breath, you can do this!) and give the kids an opportunity to use their own ideas? 

If opening up to choice makes you uncomfortable, start with baby steps-- how about starting with letting them choose between apples, oranges, and pears this time around? Or keeping the apple shape but teaching them about Pop Art and letting them have full creative control in the colors used for glazing?

As my students move up through the grade levels, I start adding new skills and once they have shown me that they've mastered those key skills, they start making a plan for their own project-- which can have either a slab or a pinch pot as a base. I included a Clay Skills Matrix in my latest resource-- it also has short video clips that demonstrate each essential ceramics skill.

One last thing-- when I teach clay skills, the whole class does it along with me. There is tons of choice embedded into what the students create, but in my experience, they need to practice with a live person checking on them to make sure that they've "got it".  This avoids "kiln bombs" 

Once everyone has the skills down, then the Clay Center opens for that class- but I will save that for my next post!

Thanks for reading!

 Kristin