Clay Sculpting Experience

To better prepare the Cardinals for the clay sculpting experience, more activities were provided to help foster their budding fine motor control and hand-eye coordination abilities.   During choice time, the Cardinals got the chance to draw on paper their research bird and also form its shape using playdough.

In strive to integrate mathematics in the arts, we combined our recent practice of geometrical shapes and its role in perspective drawing; translating a three-dimensional object onto a flat piece of paper or vise-versa. In other words, to help the Cardinals draw their object we suggested they find basic shapes in the photograph of their bird.  

We first gathered as a group and encouraged the Cardinals to take a close glance at their photograph and look at the shapes they could see, e.g., circles, ovals, triangles, squares, rectangles. We explained to them that by breaking their object down into simple shapes, the task of drawing is made much easier. Is the body of the bird you want to draw a sort of oval shape? Is it a rectangular shape?  Once the body was drawn, then it’s simply a matter of adding body parts, e.g., head, beak, wings.

After much practice with this technique, we headed to the Art Studio to meet up with Amanda, our Art teacher. She too gave us a similar technique of viewing our bird as basic shapes when shaping and molding the chunk of clay. Amanda demonstrated how we can use our “small pincher” (our fingers) and our “big pinchers” (our hands). Instead of breaking the clay up in sections, she suggested we keep it in one piece and “try to pinch things out of the clay.” The Cardinals did an AMAZING job!

We can't wait to see the ending result ...and have them rest in their nest!