Moulding Thoughts

Year 6 has been unleashing their creative side in this Block of learning. They have been learning about South Africa and during Art lessons they have been investigating the use and meaning of Bantu symbols.

Using this as inspiration, they created a design for their pots they had made on the potter’s wheel at Tafaria Castle. The pots using the symbols were able to tell a story as well as looking beautiful.

The children then got to visit the Nanyuki Ceramics Centre, where they could add their designs to their pots and here they learnt about the firing process and how a lump of clay takes its journey to become a useable waterproof pot. The children enjoyed dipping the pots in the glaze and watching their designs disappear, only to be revealed again once they had revisited the kiln for their final firing.

The children were also able to get the wet, malleable clay in their hands to mould and create a ‘bobblehead’ animal. The children used a pinch pot technique for the head and rolled the body into a cone. Using slip and scratch they attached ears, whiskers and tails

After firing these were again painted and glazed and we await the results from the final firing in the coming weeks.