Hi to all, hoping you all had a great Easter and was able to enjoy time with those you love. We had a quiet day here, and not everything went to plan, but that is the joy of life—keeps you on your toes. It is now halfway through my Easter holiday, and I wanted to share with you what my year 7 Art class was doing in the last 2 weeks of term! My class had finished the Funky Fundamentals unit and I really wanted to start our clay work before the holidays so the pieces had time to dry over the holidays. This unit is called Mask-erade, and my kids have loved getting their hands dirty with the clay. 
link to this product here 
link to the FREE Word Wall that accompanies this unit here
Before letting them loose with the clay, I always do a demonstration lesson on how to knead the clay, roll it out to an even thickness, adding texture to the work and joining parts together. I find that when I do this the students don’t waste as much clay and time doing their work. Pictured below are some of the work so far, it is yet to be put into the kiln and then glazed, but they are very proud of their work. 
A couple of the students wanted to use the molds that I had made last year, and one, as you can see, is quite amazing! What is really special about this work is that the student who created this work is a high functioning Autistic boy. This young man, who is also in our musical, does not shut up in class!!! He finds silence very difficult and will always fill it with his chatter, which is OK in an Art class. One problem with this is that he cannot work and talk at the same time and he always needs prompting to finish work. This all turned around with clay in his hands! I could not believe it after the first lesson of using the clay, I realised that he was focused, on task and so quietly absorbed in his work that he did not need reminding to stop talking and do more working. It also became quite evident that he has an amazing talent with clay and this is something I will encourage further in the future.
Until next time, happy teaching Julia from Jooya