Teaching Wheel Throwing! ~Say It With Clay

Hey Guys,

So today was pretty great. I spent the morning labeling different pieces. Then I got the opportunity to paint clear glaze on pieces that have already been fired. Its a really easy job, but very relaxing and mindless. After that I cleaned the rolling pins. They are really easy to clean, all you do is scrape them with a metal rib.

This morning we had four girls in the studio. Its really fun to see how they all interact with each other. A lot of them at that age will copy what each other do. Its fun just to witness the innocence of them making things in clay. Sadly, this morning I had other projects to do, labeling and glazing, so I didn’t get to be as involved with the kids in the morning.

The afternoon was a lot of fun. We had five kids in, two boys and three girls. While they were doing hand building, I started with cleaning the rolling pins but after that was done I didn’t have that much stuff to do. I decided to ask the kids if they wanted to throw on the wheel. Immediately everyone said yes. I decided it would be smart just to demo for them all and then just help everyone as they go. It was funny when I first started throwing and I was centering the clay, the clay flew off the wheel. A lot of the kids were really surprised, but I thought it was good that they saw that, that way they wouldn’t be surprised when it happened to them. I explained that it would probably happen to each of them at least once and it did. When I finished my demo I was surprised by how good it actually turned out because I haven’t thrown in a year. 

When four of the kids started, it was interesting to see who picked it up right away and who it took a little bit to catch on. The one boy threw for about an hour and a half and only made two pots. Another boy, who was 9, made one bowl and then he just wanted to play on the wheel and not really make anything. The 3 girls all did really well and it was fun to see how quick they caught on. The kids are young and its pretty hard to get the hang of throwing. Its still really cool to be able to teach these kids something new and fun.