How to Make Interactive Clay Visuals for Any Grade Level

We all know visuals help to enhance our students’ learning as well as our teaching. You can take it to the next level by making your visuals interactive! I’m a huge fan of interactive teaching visuals, like this magnetic color wheel. Creating an interactive poster allows students to test and interact with their vocabulary.

During clay projects, I often display these posters together.

The simpler poster features very basic steps in the clay process. This helps my youngest students visualize and grasp this process.

The more descriptive poster helps my older students understand the specific qualities of this material.

Want to make your own?

Use these posters as a starting point. Mix and match the visuals and descriptions to customize them for your students. Any part of your visual can become movable with a little bit of forethought and Velcro!

Adding Velcro allows you to conduct any number of review activities with students:

• Mix up the stages of clay and see if your students can put them back in order.
• Leave the Image section blank and see if your students can match the photos to the correct stages.
• Take all the Velcro cards off the poster, hand them out to students, and have them find their “match.”

There are many possibilities!

My favorite way to supplement learning about clay for my youngest students is Puffer Learns About Ceramics from the Dropping In On… Series! Not only does it cover the clay process, but reviews basic hand-building techniques!

How do you teach the basic stages of clay to your students?

What’s your favorite visual tool to teach?