Those lucky kinders were my first classes to earn clay privileges! We started off by talking about texture and passing around some objects with different textures. We even realized that we had textures on the bottom of our shoes! We also talked about clay and how to use it. After this little discussion, we got to making some art! They were each given a small chunk of clay. They rolled it into a ball and then set it on the ground. They picked out a spot on the sole of their shoe that they liked and stepped that spot onto the clay. This left an imprint of their shoe texture on the clay. I wrote their name on the back and poked a hole in the top and set them aside to dry for a few days.

I then fired them in the kiln after they had dried. The kids didn't believe me when I told them that the kiln was hotter than their kitchen oven or even their grill! They crack me up! After they had cooled, I dipped them into watered down india ink. This dyed them a blackish color (they kind of looked like coal!).

The next class, we colored them with oil pastels. Because they had been dyed black, the contrast between the clay and the oil pastels really makes the textures pop. We wrapped a pipe cleaner through the whole in them and then wrapped the whole ornament in newspaper. Lastly, I picked up some small white gift bags from the Dollar Tree and we colored them and put our ornament inside. They were so excited to get to take their ornament home that day!

We were once again talking about shapes! Our kinder-kiddos are becoming quite the experts on their shapes. We began class by reading Big Snow. I made sure to knock on wood after reading it (Mr. Calvert is NOT a fan of snow). Then we watched a timelapse video of snowflakes forming. They were mesmerized by the video!

After the video, we reviewed our lines and shapes. Then we got to making some art! I pre-glued a white hexagon to the center of a black sheet of paper. I pre-cut a bunch of shapes using the die-cutter. They were to glue at least three shapes to each side of the hexagon, making sure that they used the same shapes for each side. I made sure these beauties got hung up for the Winter Concert!