Clay Bobble Heads (6th and 8th)

My students really wanted to create something with clay. I asked them if they wanted to make something useful like a bowl or if they wanted to make some kind of figurine -- the vote was of course split. I looked online for inspiration, I asked other people -- all I could find were pinch pots or medieval figures. Then somewhere from the cosmos came the idea for clay bobble heads.

Students Learned/Practiced:
--Problem solving
--Critical thinking
--Patients
--Scoring and Slipping (joining clay)
--How wet clay should be when being used.
--Store clay
--Glazing

The students had very little requirements and direction for this project. I told them that it needed to sit or stand alone, the head needed to be an upside down pinch pot, the features were to NOT be drawn into the clay, needed to have along neck (so it could bobble) and no clay could be more than an inch thick.

The creativity that poured from this project was amazing! The animals, people, creatures that they made were as diverse as how they mushed/molded/ sculpted the body. Every student that attempted this project succeeded because they were allowed to work with the clay on their own terms -- not on mine.