While down in Chenoa celebrating the New Years, I found out that one of the kids received a pottery wheel from Santa! And Rosie was anxiously waiting for a private tutorial with her Uncle Gary!!! So we set up her little clay studio… okay, a dining room chair for her wheel, and another dining room chair for her water bucket… err, I man cereal bowl?! And then we had a little tutorial and she couldn’t wait to get her hands dirty!!!
So she started centering and quickly found out it wasn’t as easy as it looks!
But Rosie was a trooper and kept trying…. and trying… and trying…
And then all of a sudden she got it…
Here it is… a centered piece of clay… so NOW what do I do?
So we continued the tutorial and talked about opening the clay, not going down too far (which she did the first time), and making the hole wider.
Once she had the ball of clay opened, it was time to start raising the walls. Two fingers inside, two fingers outside, thumbs crossed, both hands working as one unit!
She kept having trouble with that whole “elbows down” concept…
And then one of her brothers started hovering like a vulture waiting on its prey.
So when Rosie had had enough and saved her first piece of pottery, Finan was quick to swoop in to give it a spin! He jumped right in and gave it a whirl solely based on the online video he watched while Rosie was practicing.
And he did pretty well… except for that whole “elbows down” thing I kept telling them!
His cylinder was looking pretty great… still working on pulling up the walls…
And then… WHOOPS!!!… looks like the clay went one way and fingers went the other!!!
And again, I kept using my favorite classroom mantra…Â “It’s just clay.”
Even if it’s all muddy all over your hands!!!
