This week's featured unit is by the second grade.
Every December the second grade teachers and I look forward to our annual candle dipping! Making a candle requires lot of community work and cooperation in order for everyone to dip their candles enough times for it to be a success. Thank you teachers and para educators for participating in this great project!
We made the candlestick holders out of clay before Thanksgiving so that we could make sure our candles fit our holders. To make them, the students practiced 2 different hand building techniques: pinching out a pot and rolling slabs. They learned the important steps that are required to join clay pieces so that it survives the drying and firing process.
The students learned about how important heat is when it acts upon different materials. They saw the changes their clay went through from wet and squishy to almost hard as stone after it was fired; and how the glazes went from dry and chalky to bright and shiny after the second firing.
The students dipped their own candles in melted wax. We talked about how the heat turns the wax into liquid and then the candle becomes solid as it cools.
The candles were enjoyed by many before the students took them home.
