Clay Pendants (My Lesson)

Clay Pendants

Description: In this lesson, students are instructed on how to work with clay with techniques such as wedging, building walls, and rolling. Students are also taught about fossils and archaeology and how clay was used in human history. To tie together all parts of this lesson, students create a clay pendant by rolling out clay, cutting a shape, and imprinting a natural artifact on it. We also had our students paint their pendants and attach them to a string to make them into clay necklaces. We used air-dry clay so that we didn't have to wait for a kiln before attaching the clay to a string.

Extension: Now that the students know some techniques to working with clay, I would have them do another lesson in which their project is a little bigger and more difficult. I would have the students use their skill with the air dry clay to create a cup or bowl using the coiling method. For this lesson, I would make sure to model and explain everything that I did before I asked students to do it, because I remember being confused one the procedure when I made a coil pot. This project is useful, because I know of many of my classmates who still have and use their coil pot to hold things. In fact, my coil pot is a drink holder in my car when I get a coffee.