This post has seven days.

For older Canadians, this title might sound vaguely familiar. 

Another busy week! I think the only people as busy as we are during April are accountants. However we are having much more fun.

Monday and Tuesday we were in St. Albert with Neil M. Ross. What a great school. We have been there so often over past few years that we feel almost like staff. We had 6 great workshops with the grade 5’s and 4’s. About 140 kids making Mother’s Day presents in two days.  Wednesday and Thursday we were at Johnny Bright still doing Mother’s Day gifts with all the Grade 1’s. This time we made about 150 little candle holders for Mom.

The students really enjoy the wheel demo. 

This morning was only a half day and we did 50 more Mother’s Day presents with Laurier Heights. This month we have made about 800 kgs or 1765 pounds of clay into gifts for Moms. That is a lot of clay projects for Mom.  That is just for April.  One has to wonder how many tons of clay projects is The Clay Teacher responsible for??

When we run as fast as we have been this last month, it is hard to keep up with the little things, like blogging.  We meet so many wonderful little sparks in the classrooms day after day, it is hard to share as much as I would like. We did Lady Bugs a while ago with St. Maria Goretti. Maria Goretti is a very multicultural school.  It has a real cross section of new Canadians. We were working with some kids that recently arrived from Africa.  I was talking about the Lady Bug legs have to be as thick as your pinky. They had never heard of a “pinky” and talking further, they had never heard of a Lady Bug. So when we started having fun and adding hair and hats etc. they thought they had come to a very strange place. Why would you put a hair on a beetle or even want to make one out of clay? It is just a bug. Here is a very cute Lady Bug, weird or not.

Friday night. Time to get loaded….. the kiln, but we must get unloaded first. We still do a number of fired workshops and we must keep the kiln running to keep up and make sure all the Mother's Day gifts arrive on time.  Here are the guys waiting to be unloaded and delivered on Monday.

Off to the basement.

Cindy Clarke
The Clay Teacher
www.theclayteacher.com
www.funclayprojects.com
www.everydayisclayday.com

Another week has flown by.

It has been a busy last few days…. or should I say daze. Last Thursday we made Lady Bugs with grade 2 and then set up the Make It show

 It was a good show.  I like doing that show, the vendors and the people who put it on are great.  The crowds are there and we sell stuff. For the past couple of years, out side of the Edmonton Folk Fest vendor tent, I have not made pots. We were at the show over the weekend and the want to make lots and lots of pots came back.  I have made literately tens of tons of clay into pots and I used to think that there was a finite amount of pots one person could make, however, I was wrong. I just needed some time off. This summer, when The Clay Teacher is taking some time off, The Potter,
http://www.outofthefirestudio.com/   will return, hopefully for good.  I need to find a balance between The Clay Teacher and The Potter . I was all potter and no teacher for years, for the past five years, I have been all teacher and very little potter. Those two girls are going to have  to learn to live together. When the want to make pots  left me, it was just like someone had moved out of my life, actually left the building. When the want to make pots came back, it was like that same person/friend had returned home. I was soo glad to see them and so happy they did. However it will be awhile before they get to make pots, or we get to visit. 

Last Friday we had four workshops.  Four in one day is always a little crazy.That Friday night we worked the Make It show. Saturday and Sunday at the show were good, lots of people and the sales were pretty good.  We have a new product with the craft kits and a new product is sometimes is a hard sell.  Education is a big part of what we do. I sometimes think we should be a food vendor. The cookie lady sold a whole lotta cookies.  I won't tell you how many  wonderful cookies I had last weekend.

Monday was 88 kinders making roses. Tuesday was 75 Grade 6 making family groups. Wednesday was only a “oner” with a wonderful teacher we have worked with for years and we made Mom and Me, a great little plaque for Mother’s day. Thursday we made 52 Roses for Mom and today we finished off the week of  67 Mom and Me plaques.




It was fun because all the kids had Mom come and they made the plaque together.  A good time for everyone!

This weekend I have some books to do and taxes to file, but before I do that we are going to the local car show to see all the new cars and drool.  It might be a while before the potter gets to make some pots,  but at least she came back home!




Cindy Clarke
The Clay Teacher
www.theclayteacher.com
www.funclayprojects.com
www.everydayisclayday.com

Dancing as fast as I can.

I started blogging again with every intention of posting three or four entries a week.  We go to a different school every day and teach from pre K to grade 12.  Mainly we work with K to 6. We talk to over 8,000 kids a year and everyday something or someone really stands out. I started this blog to share all that, however these last while has been busy. There are just not enough hours in the day.  It is an old saying, but true.

We are potters as well as teachers, http://www.outofthefirestudio.com and have been getting ready for The Edmonton Folk Festival.  I talked about it a few posts ago. I wanted to add pictures of the finished entries, but we packed them up and delivered them before I remembered to take the pictures.  We will get them back in a few weeks and I can add the shots then.  This weekend we have a trade show called Make It http://makeitproductions.com/edmonton/welcome-to-make-it/ where we will be selling our craft kits http://funclayprojects.com/.  

We have been selling some school kits.   

With the workshops everyday, the pots to be made, kits to assemble I just have not been blogging as much as I would like.  I did do a fun thing for a boy in university. If you asked him he would say he is a man.  He is working on an engineering assignment based on a beer culture.  See I told you he was a boy. He designed the mugs on his pc and I made them. It was fun to invent.  I have made a lot of mugs over the years and I never thought I would say I had fun making a mug, but I have always liked the invention side of working with clay. They are about 7 inches tall and turned out great.  He will finish them, so I sold them wet. A first for me.

 Today we work with Grade 2 making Lady Bugs, and then after lunch we set the trade show.

Cindy Clarke
The Clay Teacher
www.theclayteacher.com
www.funclayprojects.com
www.everydayisclayday.com

Where has all the ego gone?

Thursday we had a morning workshop with special needs Kinders and then in the afternoon, we worked with grade 6.  The young ones made coil pots. I wasn't sure of the abilities of special needs Kinders, so I thought a coil pot would be a good place to start.  We have done coil pots with pre K to seniors and one thing I have found is that the younger the student the better and faster the coil pot gets built. These little guys just jumped right in and did it. We had flowers, letters, lids and handles in no time at all. They had fun building and did not get in their own way.  There was no ego, none of, is this okay, is this right, is this nice, or just shut down because they were unsure. I often can't tell the difference between a K pinch pot and one made by an older student, expect the K's don't take nearly as long to finish. They did a great job.

After lunch we worked with Grade 6 making Big Mouth Beavers. They too did a great job, but by the time students get to Grade 6, ego and insecurity has often gotten their way. One boy wanted to quit before he started.  It took a bit of working with him to get him going.  It is a fine line to walk.  Do it all for him, or do nothing and let him fail. However by the end of the workshop he joined in and made a great Beaver wearing a ball cap and eating a cookie. Other students, each step of the way, was …is this okay…. is this right… will you make this for me…. I can’t do it.... are you sure this is okay. Not all of them of course, but there was a lot more fear of failure in the Grade 6’s than the Kinders. I kept telling the older kids, there are no rules, it is a Big Mouth Beaver, if you like it, it is right! Listen to that feeling in your tummy that tells you it is right, or wrong. I am not sure what happens to the kids from Kinder to Grade 6, but as they get older,  somehow they are getting in their own way and letting fear and insecurity over ride their egos. I have seen kids break down and cry over playing with a ball of mud. By the end of the workshop everyone was on track and having a great time. The work speaks for it's self.  Here is a link to facebook and the video of the Big Mouths.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=489485241117024

Tomorrow will be fun, we are making Iroquois masks with Grade 6.  Masks are one of my favourite workshops, especially the Iroquois, because they meant to be crooked so there is no wrong way to make it. 

Cheers.

Cindy Clarke
The Clay Teacher
www.theclayteacher.com
www.funclayprojects.com
www.everydayisclayday.com

Going a Little Buggy

                                                                                                                                                                       

It has been a fun and fast couple of days making bugs. Yesterday we made caterpillars 47 little guys in kindergarten. What a bunch of bright little sparks they were.  One little girl stands out.  We always take our little red wagon loaded with everything we need to the workshops.  We did the morning workshop, went for lunch and left our wagon in the class ready for the afternoon session.  After the afternoon workshop was finished, we loaded up our wagon and started to leave.

A little girl stopped me and asked if that was indeed our wagon and not something that belonged to her teacher.  When I told her it was our wagon, she looked me square in the eye and asked if it really was  our wagon, why was it there, in her classroom, before we got there.  If it was our wagon, we would have brought it in with us. She was wonderful.  What a refreshing display of confidence. She was not rude, just standing up for what she thought was right. I don’t think I would have done that at that age, stood up to an adult I didn't know. Here a few high lights of the day.

This morning we made Lady Bugs with Grade 2. 

 I thought they did a great job until a mom helper for the next workshop thought the students had just finished a wonderful Turtle workshop. I think they are cool little Lady Bugs and maybe Mom just wasn't looking at them in the right light.

After lunch we made Bouquets of Roses with Grade 1.  I was happy to see that the roses were lying on the plaque like a rose and not sitting upright like a cinnamon bun.

It was good day.  Tomorrow we have Kinders and coil pots in the morning and Grade 6 after lunch we are making Big Mouth Beavers. It should be fun!

Cindy Clarke
The Clay Teacher

funclayprojects.com
http://everydayisclayday.com/

The end of Spring Break is a walk in the park.

Spring Break went by so quickly.  It was here and now it is gone.  It is finally spring here in Edmonton and today we went for our first walk in the park this year. I am fair weather walker and today the weather was fair.   Last year we were regularly walking a four mile loop until winter and we haven’t walked since the fall. Those 4 miles are longer and the hills are much steeper than they were last year. I am not sure how that is??

The park in our neighbourhood has a small lake and is home to a number of Canadian geese. The birds might have been a little over optimistic in their recent home coming. The pond is still frozen over. It was comical to see the geese standing on the ice, walking around on the ice all the time loudly honking as if to say.....hey....where's the lake.....where's the lake.... last time we were here there was a lake???? There were a number of confused, unhappy and very noisy geese.

We did one workshop during Spring Break. It was great.  We did a mask workshop with Grade 7 – 9. It was a speed workshop.  We need the full 90 minutes for mask making, but it was the last day before their Spring Break and the kids had their own rhythms and time frames.  By the time they had wondered into the class we were almost 30 minutes late starting.  

With some pushing a a bit of help, they did well and they finished. Some of them had not worked with clay before. I have to ask, how does a student get to grade 9 and not work with clay?? They had a blast. One girl chose to miss her bus and have her parents pick her up so she could complete her mask.

Tomorrow is Caterpillars with Kinders. Nothing says spring like a caterpillar. Well that and a walk in the park.

Cindy Clarke
The Clay Teacher

funclayprojects.com
http://everydayisclayday.com/