Every time I think I'm going to run out of ideas for ceramic lesson plans, another idea pops up like a light bulb over my head. Only instead of a light bulb this time, it was a candle light, shining from inside a clay lantern. I recently dusted off the slab roller and students got busy rolling out slabs of clay.
Some of my students created cylinders, in which a candle can be placed underneath a covering or inside a little doorway.
Others created boxes with opened tops, or in the shapes of houses in which the roof could be removed to place a candle inside.
This lesson is a great way to teach about form and function, as well as negative shape and the technique of slip and score. I just got these babies out of the kiln, but I can hardly wait to see them painted or glazed, and lit up from within.