Stepping Stones

This project was to make a decorative stepping stone out of cement. The lesson started with a brief history about the different types of stepping stones and there uses. We then started to draw a rough sketch of how we would decorate the stones. While we were decorating the teachers would call us over and fill our plastic mold with wet cement. We had to let the cement sit a little bit and would shake the mold to get all the air bubbles in the cement out. After all the air bubbles came out we could then decorate the stone. The picture is of my fiancé and I and it was taken at a party at my fraternity at UND. I put our greek letters at the top of the stone and wrote the name of the party around the sides. It is kind of hard to read but it says Two Yard Hop. After done decorating we set the stones to the side so that they could dry. Once dry we simply took the stones out of the mold and took a paper towel and cleaned the stone up to make it look nice. As an extension activity we would do a class stepping stone pathway and each stone would represent a value that is dear to each student.

Lacy Clay Ornaments

This project started by a history lesson about lace, the different types of lace and how it is made. The instructors then moved in to showing how to draw a design for the lace and how to get the clay in shape. We started by being given a baggy with water and clay mixed. We had to work the clay in the bag to work the excess water in. After we had our outline drawn on white paper we taped wax paper over that. We then cut a tiny whole in one of the ends of the baggy of clay and squeezed it out like a piping bag for cooking. We tried to follow our outline as best as possible. You go over the outline a couple times to ensure that the clay will be thick enough. An extension activity would be to have a class Christmas tree and have the children decorate the tree with their ornaments.