last week of school clay birdies

Help - three days left and a lump of clay, what can we make?!

Read Babara Reid's book Have You Seen Birds? (Ah! Ces oiseaux).  Read it in both languages, it rolls along, I love it.

A muffin scoop and a mini muffin scoop will make design easy for grade 1s (a big ball and a small ball each is all 'ya need).  Roll, smooth, score and slip.  Beware, they need to score and slip or heads will roll (literally), I always pack a glue gun to avoid tears the next day.

This is the bin of junk in the garage that inspired these birdies, he saw copper wire, I saw knobby legs and twisted feet.  No random rolls of copper wire laying around the garage?  Uncoil some large paper clips, voilà.

For the wings we made a pancake, cut it in half, and pinched a scalloped edge.

Are they not the sweetest ever sitting on the window sill waiting for paint?  

At the end of the year I bring out some new stuff, metallic and sparkly paint.  They require an undercoat of regular paint first (they don't seem to cover) but who doesn't get a kick out of a little glitter?

Tempera paint pucks work fine.  It just occurred to me that a feather in his bum might be more fun than a clay tail!

I finally put my acrylics into plastic containers with wide lids, no more squirting and washing, they dip their brushes right in (a little bit kiddos, just a little!).



A quick coat of shiny varnish spray makes 'em beautiful.

I had planned to show students how to use the end of their paintbrush and cotton swabs to make dots, eyes, dots on dots.  In the end they were thrilled to do their own thing, which was just lovely.