Kindergarten Mother's Day Pots

 The usual clay project for my kindergartners is a pinch pot. I have done different things with the basic pinch pot in the past (bird nest, bowls, etc). This year, we made them into "vases" for Mother's Day.

We made the typical pinch pot out of a piece of clay. We used the words walls, base and mouth when talking about our vase.

Some of the students got adventurous and even tried to make theirs into the shape of a heart. What mom wouldn't love to get one of those!

I fired the pieces once they were finished so that they would be ready to glaze for the next class time.

 When the students came in the next week, I had placed egg cartons on each table (I had cut them in 1/2, so they had 6 spaces). I had already filled the cartons with colors.

We went over the rules for painting: rinsing our brushes, filling then entire space with color, etc.

I also added in that I wanted them to glaze the entire "vase" EXCEPT for the bottom (this is where I had put their initials). I showed them how they could leave their vase sitting on the table. If it was touching the table- they didn't need to glaze it.

 I gave them the entire class time to glaze their vases. Most of them decided to paint a pattern around the outside of their vase- kinder had been spending a lot of time on patterns and this had transferred over to our art room. Fantastic!!!

The last step, was to take decorative marbles (the kind that you put into dishes on your coffee table or into fish bowls- I found them at the dollar store!) and place them into the bottom of their vases. Most of the vases only needed 1 large marble, some needed 2.

When I fired the vases the last time, the marbles melted and cracked, giving the vases a unique look that the students loved.

We wrapped them up with tissue paper and ribbon and they took them home just in time for Mother's Day!

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