Turkey Pinch Pots

I saw this lesson at  Deep Space Sparkle and was thrilled to give a new pinch pot idea a try. Plus I had parents talking about not having too many pieces of art that made good Thanksgiving decorations. This project seemed to fit all the criteria!

I have finally moved on from Crayola Air Dry clay, and I will never go back! Not having a kiln has made me hesitant to push on with clay projects, but it is so important to have that tactile experience, and to work three dimensionally. For this project we used Amaco air dry clay and it outperformed the Crayola by leaps and bounds.

We each worked with a baseball sized ball of clay, gently kneading it to use the warmth of our hands to soften the clay. Then each child pushed one finger into the center of their ball to create the center of the pot. We didn't thin out the walls of the pot too much, to allow for pulling the head and neck from one end and the tail feathers from the other. The beak, waddle, and wings were added with extra pieces of clay, and the children were instructed on how to score and moisten the point of contact to get it to adhere well. The turkeys were finished off with acrylic paint after they had completely dried.