10 Engaging Elementary Clay Lessons that Your Art Students Will Love.

April 7, 2025 by Jenn

Table of Contents

Lower Elementary Clay Lessons

Pinch Pots-When it comes to elementary clay lessons, pinch pots are the way to start with kinders. It has always been a great introduction to clay. Rolling out a ball is a great foundational technique and the pinching helps them to understand how to change the shape of their form.

Owls-I cannot take credit for this original idea, but I had to try these! We basically roll out a ball, flatten into a circular slab and fold over the head and wings. The kids love pressing various materials into the clay to create textures. Think dry noodles, legos, straws, popsicle sticks. Thread spools make the perfect owl eyes, as well.

Animals-It is fun to have the kids pick an animal, later to design its habitat in a paper sculpture format. The kids form a peanut-like shape to create the head and body. They indent a tongue depressor in a criss-crossed formation to begin the legs and drag down the clay to elongate them. This gets a little tricky for some of the younger kiddos, so I reserve this for second grade and up. Animal features can be pulled out of the clay as well, so no need to join pieces. We finish by pressing and drawing in markings and textures.

Blue Dog-Kid’s are instantly drawn to George Rodrigue’s charming blue dog. They use the same technique that I use for the animal sculptures that I just discussed. Just like in George Rodrigue’s book Why is Blue Dog Blue?, the students can glaze their Blue Dog sculpture in the color of their choice. Learn more about George Rodrigue and his art here.

John James Audubon inspired birds and nests-In this lesson, similar to Audbon, we study and sketch one of the birds native to the state of Virginia. You can adjust this, based on the state that you are located in. They use their very detailed sketches as a reference throughout this project. Unless they choose to have wings that are flapping, most of the details can be pulled from a peanut-like shape. The students try to pack in as much of the bird’s identifying markings and textures as possible. The nest comes next so that they can size it correctly to their bird. All it takes is a pinch pot and a lot of scratched in texture. They will need to reference their sketches one more time while glazing to get the colors just right.

Pinch Pot animals-This lesson is great for 3rd graders and up. The students light up when I show them images of how a basic pinch pot can be transformed into their favorite animals. They will sketch out a few ideas and pick their favorite. In third grade we really dive into hand modeling with all of the animal features. I challenge them to hand build as much as they can, rather than drawing in the animal’s features. We also utilize proper joining techniques with scoring, slip and welding.

Coil Pots- My fourth graders are introduced to the incredibly detailed Jomon Pottery for this lesson, as well as modern examples of coil pots. Before we dive into this lesson, they sketch out ideas and do a whole lot of practice rolling out coils with modeling clay. This lesson requires multiple sessions and demonstrations. They will learn how to create a base out of either a rounded slab or a pinch pot. They will also learn how to build their coils upward, change the width as they go along, properly join the coils and create surface design with textures(always utilized within these elementary clay lessons). To create stability, I have them smooth the coils together on the inside of their vessels.

Gargoyles-This tends be one of the favorites of all of the elementary clay lessons. My fifth graders learn about the middle ages in their curriculum. Creating these fantastic beasts is a great tie into Medieval and Gothic style architecture. We discuss how you can mix and match a variety of animal features to create their design. Once again, the pinch pot comes through as an accessible way to represent the wide open mouth of the gargoyle. We stabilize the project by attaching the pinch pot to a slab base. From here, they go wild with adding both the creature details and textures.

Ancient Egyptian Canopic Jars-As a class we discuss the role of Canopic Jars in housing important internal organs in the process of mummification. We change the meaning of our canopic jars into creating a vessel that will hold items that are important to us and represent our interests, families, etc. You can create this vessel either by creating a cylinder with a slab or with the coil pot technique. They create a lid by attaching a pinch pot, complete with animal features and later cut it off with a wavy line. The students will also need to incorporate their name with hieroglyphics. I have done this lesson with 5th and 6th graders.

Clay Identity Tiles-In 6th grade we create a lot of art based on personal identity and interests. The students design a tile that best represents them as a person. They are given a template to cut out the square slab. They have to make sure they don’t roll it out too thin. The various details within their design will be hand built, attached and enhanced with textures. The kids can also choose to add holes if they wish to hang theirs up.

Slab boxes-This lesson was taught to 6th graders since my elementary school is k-6. This is the most advanced clay project that I have ever done with my students and would work well for middle school students. Sticking with the theme of identity, they design a box that incorporates personal symbolism. They will also need to cut the lid off with a simple varied line, similar to cutting the top off a pumpkin. They should not make this cut too detailed, as it may be difficult to detach it.