The following pictures show the results of a pottery project that I facilitated with my grade 5/6 class. In the first picture the coil pots are sitting on a tray before being fired. In the second picture the pots are shown painted, glazed and fired. I focused on coil building with the students because it is a type of pottery that is relatively easy to construct. Facilitating coil building in this age group was definitely challenging at times. Learners had difficulty ensuring that the coils were even. In addition, it was challenging for some of the students to score the coils and ensure that the porcelain body was wet enough to stick together but not so wet as to lose its form.
The importance of this artifact is that it represents the integration of my life-long learning into the classroom environment. As I have described in a previous article I learned clay building within recent years as a self-directed learning project. I have embarked on a number of these projects in recent years and have been able to acquire skills in pottery, guitar playing, birdwatching and website development.
