Child Development and Learning Strategies Through Clay

An Approach to learning. 

There are at least 8 ways learners process and retain information.  The traditional way of teaching in schools often does not encourage all the students to use their best learning skills.  Unless the teacher is equipped with extra time and abilities to let students learn in ways that suit their unique personality traits, some of them may stay behind, and feel incompetent, incapable, and unintelligent. This often affects their well-being and easily leads to behavioral problems.
Children who feel smart and competent are eager to learn and feel happy and successful among their peers. They will embrace all opportunities and work their way through challenges. The discouraged student will give up.
In this blog post, I will use clay activities to explore and discuss an approach to learning; how it benefits learning strategies on various levels and ages, and how teachers can introduce pottery to students, without the need for a pottery studio.  I will begin to discuss the benefits of integrating pottery into early childhood development and how clay activities assist in their development.

Let's back up: how is clay beneficial? 

When I first started doing pottery, I was strictly attracted to the material; the holistic nature of working with clay, and the challenges of holding a fired pottery object in my hands. I did not have any idea of how healing and beneficial this medium can be for any person.
 
Children were always attracted to my studio.  While growing up, my own 3 girls were around me all day long, pounding, poking, rolling, and building with clay. Their friends joined the fun and they were busy for hours without me having to watch over their shoulders.  As the years passed, I learned more from working and teaching pottery classes than I ever thought possible and it turned out to be like a termite nest; what is seen on the surface and what goes on below, are 2 completely different things.
 
Pottery draws people in. It captivates and mesmerizes them. The more a student creates clay objects, the more the clay helps to develop their skills as they learn to be in control of the clay. They learn to communicate better, to self-express better, to solve problems, and in the process build self-esteem. Pottery activities are the one thing that keeps building back to the person manipulating it, making it a perfect tool to integrate into schools. Today, my knowledge and experiences about the benefits of students learning through clay activity are concrete and widely backed by research.  

​Pottery as a visual arts solution for schools. 

Kindergarteners used paperclay to study snow owls and their habitat.

1st. graders studied landform and reported their knowledge with painted paperclay.

There are a wide variety of artistic activities benefiting children and their learning abilities. Most are suitable to incorporate in the classroom and each of them can encourage children to find their preferred way of learning.
 
Pottery is a visual art activity. Students can begin to play with clay from a very early age. As soon as a child understands not to put clay in his or her mouth or throw it around, they are ready to discover clay. Having the potential to create 2 and 3-dimensional art with this shapeable material, makes it more versatile than many other types of visual arts. Spatial relationships, geometry, and cause-and-effect principles become very early on natural learning curves for these young kids.
 
Playdough and similar commercial sculpting mediums are colorful and attractive to children. In contrast, pottery clay is an unattractive brown or gray, which at first may appear to be a disadvantage, until one realizes that choice-making is a crucial part of the growing process.
 
Pottery clay needs ceramic stains and glazes or acrylic paints to add color in the final finished product. The ability for students to have control over color, adds a diversity component to pottery clay, which is often suppressed in the cookie-cutter world that we live in. It has an open-ended character providing students with a 3-dimensional canvas with permanent qualities. Students who enjoy clay at an early age will be able to create permanent pottery work as they get older, holding the promise of self-worth, a strong element in learning success. 

Paperclay formed crow, fired and glazed in a regular pottery way.

Paperclay formed crow left unfired and painted with acrylic paints.

The use of Paperclay is a cheap alternative to learning arts in schools

Due to budget cuts, teachers often work with minimal artistic materials. Pottery clay is cheap and unfired pottery clay can be recycled multiple times. The same ball of clay can be used repetitively, as long as it is kept soft with water, stays uncontaminated, and rests in plastic after it is being used. In some areas, especially Mississippi, clay can be dug up from the earth, adding another learning opportunity for, especially older kids. Few art mediums stimulate growth and skill in children in the way that clay does. Maintaining and reclaiming used clay correctly makes it one of the cheapest mediums to introduce into the school classroom.
 
Teachers are often under the impression that they need a pottery studio set up, and access to a kiln in the school to do pottery with students, while all that is needed are washable tables, water buckets, clay, found objects that may serve as tools, and a teacher willing to let students play and explore clay.
 
Paperclay is a clay medium widely used among potters.  The added value of this medium is that it does not have the same technical and scientific demands that other pottery clays have. The paper fibers provide added strength during the making and its forgiving qualities allow students to focus on the project. Although it is regular pottery clay, the added paper, makes it a medium suitable to add wet to dry clay, and allows for fixing mistakes after it has been through the kiln. It can be fired to become true pottery objects, but it has tremendous value in a school classroom because it can stay unfired. Paperclay is strong enough to be painted with acrylic paints and acrylic sealers once the student sculptures are dried. It will last as long as it stays protected from water. These sculptures, painted colorfully, provide opportunities to explore and integrate art with class subjects.
Compared to artificial modeling clay materials, real pottery clay has endless learning opportunities for students of all age

Paperclay can be store-bought, or mixed up in the school. It is possible to dig up regular clay and add paper to it to make it stronger for use in the classroom.

In this image Antoinette shows how clay can be used as a permanent canvas to study vegetation.

Antoinette is available to assist schools to start their own clay program, regardless of  access to a pottery kiln or not. 
Through arts integrated lessons Antoinette can help to bridge the visual arts with the  all subject areas. let her know where your needs are and with your collaboration she will help you to develop an approach to teaching that will benefit your students. 

Also see the article about paperclay mixing