Clay Castles with 5th and 6th Grade

The fifth and sixth graders study the Medieval time period in their Language Arts/Social Studies class.  I love teaching this clay castle project because it allows the students to practice important clay building skills (plus it’s just fun!):

• rolling slabs
• building with slabs
• scoring and using slip
• smoothing
• adding embellishments
• glazing

We started by drawing some preliminary sketches of Medieval castles.  The students looked at some examples for reference. The Medieval Castle (one example of a resource) They drew their own ideas for castles based on what they saw.  I did not require them to create a traditional Medieval castle, but I wanted them to infuse their own creativity into the project.

This student made one castle and had time to make another sculpture. I love this EYE bowl!