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Willingham Primary School

Years 3 & 4: Clay pinch pot design

This half-term, the pupils will be designing and making pinch pots in air-dry clay. The pots have to be formed in a single lesson so it was important for the children to record and consider their design and the tools that they would need to use before we started.

We began by looking at how clay is formed in the soil and at the history of pottery from pre-Neolithic times onwards. We were inspired by the work of contemporary British potter, Kate Malone, whose creative and beautiful designs are often based on fruit, vegetables and other natural forms.

In this project, our designs will be based on monsters. We drew and annotated our ideas in sketchbooks. The children were encouraged to think both of creativity and practicality. We want our pots to look amazing  but also to stand up and not to fall to pieces.

We talked about the need to think in three dimensions rather than simply draw a monster and many pupils drew their designs from the front and the back.

The children annotated their designs to show how they were going to achieve their exciting ideas.

The plans were individual and showed both imagination and careful thought:

The designs look wonderful and we can’t wait to see how they turn out next week.

You can see photographs of the next stage here.