Cement Making

For the cement making, I used a plastic tray that held the wet cement into play. After the cement was poured into the tray, I had to shake the tray a little bit to bring the bubbles to the top and had to lay paper towels over the top to get some of the water off of the surface. Once enough water was off the top, I placed the picture into the cement. It is important to get all of the stones and the picture pressed into the cement so that it stays in. To ensure the picture stayed in the cement, I placed seashells on the corners. Then I just placed different types of stones in the cement deep enough to make sure they stay in, along with creating a heart design with the pink stones. The cement took two to three days to dry. Once it was dry, I slid it out of the tray. Finally I took a damp paper towel and wiped over the picture and the stones to clean the cement off that had went on top when placing everything into the cement. This made it look clean and shiny.

A cross curricular project for cement making would be for literature. Students could tell a story with objects placed into the cement. They could do one story within one stone or the students could tell one story using multiple stones.

Lacy Clay Ornaments

This project is Lacy Clay Ornaments. I started by drawing a design that was connected within. I started with a circle and then made a heart with circles on the inside. I connected the heart to the large circle with lines. Once the drawing was complete, I traced it with black permanent marker. I taped wax paper over the tracing so that I could squeeze the clay onto the was paper for easy peeling when taking it off. Once the paper was taped on, I mix water with some clay in a small bag. After the clay was mixed well, I cut off one corner so there was a tiny hole to squeeze the clay out. I traced my drawing twice with the clay to make thicker lines. Next, I used water colors to paint the ornament while it was still wet so that the paint colored the clay, along with blending it together. Finally I let it dry, then peeled it off of the wax paper and tied a ribbon by the top of the heart.

A cross curricular project would be to make fossils in social studies. Students can fill in holes in rocks with clay, and peel it out when dry to have a whole figure. This would help them understand how fossils are made.