Sea-s the Clay- A School-wide, Florida based, Art Adventure

Impact to My Classroom

# of Students Impacted: 506

Coming in April 15th, Champion will be having an Art show, featuring the works of our VPK, Kindergarten, 1st Grade, and 2nd Grade students. This will be their primary show for the school year. Featured also (depending on availability of space) will be clay pieces from 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students.

This year the goal for our art program at Champion, is to learn about our Sunshine State, and use that knowledge to create art that will create a difference. With that goal in mind, we took off and have created hundreds of pieces of art-reflecting what we have learned about this year. This grant specifically touches on our clay projects-but please know that the supplies purchased surpassed even the project request, and paints were able to be used to support several 2D projects as well.

For our upcoming show, the focus is primarily for VPK, K, 1, and 2-since December was the time we had our 3,4,5 art show. 

For this show:

VPK students are creating fish with fun textures, and will be painting them with the tempera cakes provided from this grant. 
Their work will join a section of the Kindergarten reef display.

For our event, Kindergarten students are creating ocean animals with clay, to live among a grand coral reef. The coral reef is constructed of small sculptures, recycled art and materials, and is a collaborative piece created by all grade levels- during choice based lessons.

First grade students are creating animals that live among the mangroves that are so important to our native wildlife. The mangrove tree will be made entirely with materials that have been recycled and reused at our school. As of this day (2/25/25) it is still actively being constructed. Most of the structure has been created by our Champion students in a collaborative setting, with all small details individually made and added on by students.

The clay creatures created feature animals and wildlife that live among the mangroves along our Florida shorelines.

2nd grade students specifically have created choices of insects found, where we spent time learning about symmetry in art, the importance of insects in an ecosystem, and spending time to create their own choice insect. Insects will be on display, surrounding another collaboratively created, tree stump and fallen branches, that show how valuable the fallen foliage is for the lives of insects and maintaining a biodiverse ecosystem. As of this day (2/25/25) the tree is still actively being constructed.

Students will be able to create their insects, paint their insects, and create part of the ecosystem for the insects (focusing on the forests often found in Florida). 

All clay creations feature choice textures with the clay tools purchased through this request. Students were able to add details with the clay tools, and patterns to suit their subject matter. 

Apart from these grades, 3rd and 5th grade have not yet done their clay pieces, but will be soon. 5th grade will be constructing reptilian clay eyes, and miniature coral reefs (bleached reefs and living reefs), and 3rd grade will be creating forest living land animals (mostly mammals). 4th grade students had a broader option for their clay creations, and were permitted to select an animal of importance to them that was native to Florida, and recreate that animal with clay. With the vast amount of options, surprisingly creating snakes and sea turtles were the favorite among students, creating the coals-textures of the scales and shells, and more. They were given choices of tempera cake paint or acrylic paint that was available as well. Students had to create and also write a reflection piece to really discuss their subject of choice. The photographs included below highlight 4th grade specifically, at the time of this posting. 

Thank you again so much for choosing to support this grant and our school. My students and I are so thankful for the opportunities provided by this experience. I hope to be able to upload images from our show later in the year, to show how immensly you have impacted our learning this year.