There is an old saying "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man a fish and feed him for life." That is what we are trying to do. No, not teach students to fish, but with the DVDs we are giving them access to the knowledge of how to work with clay anytime, anywhere and as often as they like. When students work with clay freely and often, the focus of the workshop becomes education and not the finished project at the end. The fun is in the making and doing. The curriculum states forming clay is to be taught, but no one can learn anything with only one hour a year or less to practice. The curriculum doesn't say collect keepsakes. Clay is cheap as dirt....I wonder why..... a box of clay weighs about 20 kilograms or 44 pounds and costs about $20 here in Alberta. That is about fifty cents a a pound. Most projects will use only a pound or two, sometimes even less than that. One box is more than enough for one and most likely enough for two workshops. When the clay is dry, add water and use it again.
We did about 5,000 air dry projects last year. A lot of them were repeat customers. We do more air dry workshops than we do fired. We have gone to Sheldon Coates in Grande Cache and done air dry projects with the entire school three times so far and are going back this month for the forth.
We would really like to get clay in every classroom and have every child working with it as often as they like and make as many things as they want. Wouldn't it be wonderful if every day was Clay Day?
For more information on air drying clay and not "air dry" clay please read the last two posts. Thank you.
Until the next time.
Cindy
The Clay Teacher
Every day is Clay Day!
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