In this article, the author describes a project designed for fourth-graders that involves making clay relief sculptures of houses. Knowing the clay houses will become a family heirloom makes this lesson even more worth the time. It takes three classes to plan and form the clay, and another two to underglaze and glaze the final products.

Both Greeks and Romans placed the building of temples and sanctuaries high on their list of architectural priorities, as these structures were a source of public pride. The temples were built as shrines for the all-important gods and goddesses of the ancient world. The Parthenon is a great example of this. The frieze on the Parthenon shows scenes…

Bobble heads had become quite popular, depicting all sorts of sports figures, animals, and even presidents. In this article, the author describes how her fourth graders made bobble head sculptures out of empty plastic drink bottles. (Contains 1 online resource.)

The author's fourth-grade students had just finished a drawing unit that focused on the human figure. Projects included charcoal gesture drawings and chalk manikin drawings in chiaroscuro. She wanted to integrate a new medium for students to continue their study of the human figure. Since students are always excited to work with clay, making clay…

Writing about the teaching artist practice should mean writing about art making. As both teacher and artist, the authors are required to be cognizant of their own art-making processes, both how it works and why it is important to them, in order to make this process visible to their students. They also need the same skills to write about how and…

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, who have been married over 30 years, take items from popular culture and transform them into giant sculptures that are on display all over the world. Their installations include clothespins, baseball bats, garden shovels and ice cream cones, to name a few. This transformation of everyday things is a great…

A shiny human figure turned into a car or a jet--what kid (or kid at heart) wouldn't enjoy these images? The author found that showing his students these shiny human sculptures by artist Ernest Trova (1927-2009) was a great place to start an exciting sculpture project with his fourth-grade students. In the 1960s, Ernest Trova created a painting of…

In this article, the author describes a metal-tooling project for his fourth-graders. Giving the students a specific subject with specific features and textures enabled him to guide them step-by-step in the metal-tooling process. This project would be a great practice project for even high-school students before doing other relief work. After…

When the glass artist Dale Chihuly exhibited his work at the Missouri Botanical Garden, the author took a class of fourth-grade students to view the artist's extraordinary sculptures. Just as the author predicted, the students were in awe of Chihuly's organic three-dimensional sculptures. Before taking the field trip to the Missouri Botanical…

Two fourth-grade teachers presented the idea of using the author's art class to inspire the students to write creatively. The theme of scary stories needed an art project to match. The author immediately had a favorite lesson in mind. By putting a small twist on one of her standard "Frank Lloyd Wright House" projects, scary plans began to take…

This paper demonstrates how aesthetic engagement can encourage empathy and caring in the art classroom. As artful inquiry, this hybrid form of arts-based educational research and teacher research examines my own classroom practice and pedagogy exploring how aesthetics can become a philosophy of care. Part 1 outlines the "Living Compositions…

In this article, the author, an art teacher, describes how third- and fourth-graders in her art club made three-dimensional sculptural masks as their project. Students in this art club are usually kids that excel in the arts, or simply have the desire to learn more about the arts. Their projects are usually permanent to the school and become part…

The author's encounter with a live owl and her purchase of a Peruvian folk art gourd inspired a new interdisciplinary experience for the author's fourth grade students. In this article, she describes how her students explored owls through clay sculpture. (Contains 2 resources and 1 online resource.)

Thanks to a generous grant from a family foundation, two retired art teachers from Washington Elementary School in Evanston, Illinois, were brought back to facilitate a series of special projects, giving every child in the school a meaningful experience with clay. Each grade level team was asked to decide on a part of the curriculum they wished to…