Lesson Background:
Our spelling Word of the Week is "stray" and we read the gorgeous book "The Stray Dog" by Marc Simont. The children loved talking about dogs, so we had our lovely principal bring her 2 dogs in for a visit, read the fabulous picture book "100 Dogs" by Michael Whaite, and then made these dog scultpures.
Lesson Materials (per student):
A range of clay modelling tools
A chunk of air dry clay
a small pot of water (1 between 2 children is fine)
A drop sheet for the table and some baby wipes for cleaning hands and tables!
Lesson Steps:
1. We read "100 Dogs" by Michael Whaite and talked about the different types of dogs we might make a sculpture of. We also looked at photos of dog sculptures from Google Images, including some local ones. We talked about techniques such as making a dog look shaggy by using sharp tools to scrape all over the clay and how adding a muzzle rather than just a nose straight onto the head, will help it look more like a dog than a cat.
2. We watched/read the wikihow video: https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Clay-Dog
3. I showed the students how to break up their chunk of clay into a large section for the body, and then smaller chunks for head and legs, and even smaller chunks for tail, ears, eyes, muzzle and nose. I also modelled how to attach the pieces together, smooth the edges, and use water to help smooth & join, as well as stop the clay drying out. Most children did need some teacher help to ensure the legs were smoothly and strongly attached!
4. When completed, we put the children's initials into the base with a pen tip, and then left to dry!
