Themed Clay Boxes

EXTRA! EXTRA! 8th Grade Finally Works with Clay!

My 8th graders haven't worked with slabs before so I thought this would be a good opportunity.  The lesson is pretty simple and self explanatory, so I'll lay out the basics.  The students were asked to sketch out a plan for a themed box.  The theme needed to be portrayed in some way, shape or form on all sides of the box plus it required a topper (gotta practice those slip and scoring skills).  This meant that some of my students planned on adding attachments to their sides and others painted or carved into them while all of them had to create a 3D topper to attach to the lid.  Once the sketches were done, they made templates from posterboard (most of the students planned on cubes, so this step was easy).  I taught them how to make a slab.  As I tend to do with middle school, I made them an instructional video and did a class demonstration. It is hard for all of them to gather around a table and watch me, so the video helps with that part and the live demo helps clarify anything they were confused about in the video.

They each made their necessary slabs and once they were leather hard, we slipped and scored them together  (as a hollow form, we cut the lids off later) plus any other attachments we needed and carved what needed to be carved.  We cut the lids to have uneven edges with Exacto knives so that the lid wouldn't just slide right off but it also had to be removable.  Once bisqued, they had the choice of painting their box with acrylics and adding a gloss, or they could glaze it.  And as I always say...they came out great!  I absolutely love the work that these kids do!  I tried to get a couple of angles on a few of these, so you could see how their themes panned out:

Important caption to the bird box--this student's box was caving in while she attached her slabs and instead of giving up, she altered her plan and made something creative and beautiful!  Love when that happens!

Fall of 2014 Examples:

Display Case of 8th Grade Themed Clay Boxes with 2nd Grade Animal Accents

 Close ups:

Marvel Box View 1

Marvel Box View 2

 

Coke Can

Cupcake

Gatorade Bottle

Beach Scene and Dowling High School Volleyball Theme

Lighthouse

Notre Dame Football

Outer Space-Planets View 1

Outer Space- Planets View 2

Winter Theme with a Canadian Maple Leaf

Cross Country Theme

Robot

Frog

Police Box

Snowman
Side note: this snowman was dropped during the making of it and she gave it the TLC it needed to revive the smashed up version!

Easter Theme

Cat with Fish Topper!

Minion

Clay Kitty

Penguin

One of my avid readers made this book themed box! (view 1)

Book Themed View 2

Mario and Luigi!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Slug View 1

Teenage Mutant Ninja Slug View 2

Teenage Mutant Ninja Slug View 3 (back)

Fall Theme View 1

Fall Theme View 2

Fairy Tale View 1

Fairy Tale View 2

Minion

Gatorade

Clay Cat