Clay Chinese Dragons

These dragons were made by my Grade 5 students earlier this year for Year of The Dragon. After some research, we discovered that Chinese dragons are traditionally portrayed as a creature with a snake-like body, the head of a camel, ears of a cow, eyes of a bull, horns of a stag, scales of a fish and claws of an eagle.

These individual characteristics really helped the students to create their dragons one feature at a time. After firing, the dragons were painted and some students chose to add glitter or googly eyes.

  

  

  

 

Happy Chinese New Year

I've been enjoying my summer holidays for the past few weeks but I realised today is Chinese New Year so I thought I'd post some dragons for Year of the Dragon. These clay sculptures were made by some of my grade 4 students last year as part of a fantasy theme. I plan to do some more dragons once I get back to school - Chinese style dragons this time.

Ceramic Mermaids and Mermen

These mermaids and mermen were created by my grade fours last year. I decided it would be best to give the mermaids some modesty by using seashells as fans or bikini tops. (I am not responsible for the well-endowed ladies by the way, that was all the girls and their wishful thinking). The boys also made tridents for their Neptunes. 

Shadow Puppets

Yeti shadow puppet by Owly.

This lesson was inspired by these awesome shadow puppets - owlyshadowpuppets.etsy.com which I showed the students to help them with their ideas.

Grade 6 students made these shadow puppets from thick cardboard and split pins (they really moved!) based on their own designs of mythical creatures. They took a bit of work and by the time we finished them there was no time for a puppet show :(.  But, they were so cool! and I think it really helped them understand positive and negative space.

Clay Treasure Chests

I made these clay treasure chests with grade 2, but this would work with older children too.

Boxes were made with slab construction by creating a bottom, two side pieces and two end pieces and joining together with a lot of slip and extra clay! Boxes were decorated with padlocks, handles and rivets and clay tools were used to scratch in a wood grain texture. Later we also created a lid piece and after firing, chests were painted in brown and metallic paints.

They came out a bit rough looking - but I think it makes them look quite rustic and authentic.

For display I filled the chests with sequins to look like shiny treasure!