Family Plaque
Division: III
Location: Visual Art Studios at St. Albert Place (Art Gallery of St. Albert)
Duration: 1.5 Hours
Activity/Products:
- This delightful clay project allows students to create themselves and their entire family, including pets. Students learn how to plan their low-relief sculpture, incorporating multiple hand-building techniques to create a unique portrait of their own family.
- – Students learn what clay is, where it comes from, why it is fired in a kiln, and how to shape clay and use clay tools safely in a professional visual art studio.
- – Students experiment with cutting, attaching, drawing, impressing, rolling and coiling clay to build a low relief two-dimensional sculpture of their family including more advanced slab techniques such as cutting and welding to make cylindrical shapes.
Volunteers: 4–6 recommended
- Grade 7 Art: Develop competence with the components of image: media, techniques and design elements
- Grade 8 Art: Employ space, proportion and relationships for image making
- Grade 8 Art: Create compositions in three dimensions
- Grade 9 Art: Create compositions in three dimensions
- Scheduling Requirements:
Schools must schedule a minimum of two programs on the same day with a lunch break in between. If booking three programs in one day, the school must provide a designated room for classes to rotate through for the full day. Please note that we may not be able to accommodate your in-school program request if these requirements are not met.
- Teacher-Provided Materials:
Teachers are responsible for providing access to water, paper towels, and desk coverings.
- Clay Program Details:
All in-school and virtual clay programs use air-dry clay, which is less durable than clay bisque-fired at our visual art studios. We are unable to transport clay from in-school programs to our studios for firing. However, if your school has a kiln and a trained technician, we can supply suitable clay for firing on-site at your school.
Click here for information on in school techniques for finishing air dry clay.
* To schedule a field trip, you'll need to have a teacher account and log in. If you don't have an account yet, you can easily register for one here.
Teacher Feedback
My students loved the field trip. There is a good mix of teaching about the history and hands-on activities.
Perfect project to complement our learning in Science.
The presentation was engaging and informative. It fit in wonderfully with our kindergarten curriculum and was a positive and meaningful experience for my students.
These were valuable and engaging programs for the students. They enjoyed learning a new skill and at the river lots they were encouraged to think critically and reflect carefully.
My students loved it and couldn't wait to go home and show their creations!
This program was fantastic. The students loved the opportunity to be in council chambers.
I have done clay projects with you for as long as I can remember. Once again, everything was AMAZING! We have a new grade partner this year who had never been, and she absolutely loved it! The instructors are always excellent, They explain and guide the students in manageable chunks to make it easy for the kids to follow along. I love that you allow extra parents to come and assist. I especially like that the projects are always connected to the curriculum! Thanks again.
The Peru and Indigenous Peoples of Canada program perfectly connected Gr 3 Social Studies content with some Gr 4 Social Studies content. We had lots to talk about after.
The instructor was amazing. She engaged the students in the Métis culture. The activity was hands on and informative.
Amazing program with a knowledgeable instructor who engaged my students and me too! Thanks so much for offering this field trip.