Cupcake Containers- Kindergarten

In Kindergarten, our curriculum calls for teaching the students how pinch and roll clay to make a piece of artwork. We decided to make clay cupcake containers! The kinders were so excited!
First we had a day where we just got comfortable with the clay. Students smushed and smashed and made all sorts of things, but at the end of the day, they had to give the clay back.

During the next class, we talked about how air bubbles can form in the clay and how we need to get rid of those so our pieces don't explode in the kiln. We all wedged our clay and then rolled into a ball. Using thumbs and then pinching, students made a hole and then enlarged it. This created a small pinch pot. I showed everyone how to use their fingers to smooth the top edge. Then using a small wooden tool, students created a cupcake holder texture on the outside of their pinch pot by lightly etching vertical lines into the clay.

For our third class, students rolled out a looooong 'snake' of clay. A lot of students had trouble doing this at first, but after a kick start from the teacher, they got along just fine. Then the clay was laid on the edge of the cupcake bottom (which is by now dry so it's more sturdy!) and coiled around until it came to a point. I did a quick demo on how to lightly smudge the clay together so that the coiled 'snake' would stick. ( I also went back after the kids had left and made sure they were all secure, mostly on the inside of the coil so as not to ruin the frosting effect.) The kids then rolled out small balls of clay to attach to the top as cherries!

Out last class was painting/glazing the cupcakes. Since I have a limited amount of glaze, the students got to select a glaze for the icing and then we painted the cherries red. We're still waiting to do the last step, which is to paint the cupcake holder or the bottom of our cupcake container. We will be using tempera paint for this so that the kids have a wider variety of colors to choose from. They are so cute and charming. For the record, I borrowed the idea from a picture I saw on Artsonia, found here. I modified it a bit for kinders and I simply used this project to teach clay techniques, we didn't talk about Wayne T. It was so fun to do this project, the littles love clay!