Anasazi Pottery

The first day of school was a Tuesday.  As our scheduled played out, Art is on Tuesday.  My first thought was that we would make some wonderful school banner, to instill some sort of "homeschool pride" in my girls the very first day.  That sort of fell apart as Eva and I had walked through the craft store the night before, and I couldn't think of a thing to make a banner better than the stick-on letters and Eva's birthday banner from the week before.  So... that'll not quite go over as an Art activity.

Then I looked in my handy Art instruction book. 



This book is fantastic.  No matter how well-versed you are (or in my case, not) in art lingo, this offers easy to follow, fun art activities that actually teach something.  I had happened to pick up some modeling clay that just dries hard (without baking) and then found a great project of pinch/ coil pots that you painted white and black.  Voila. Anasazi pottery.  It was a great lesson in history too.  We looked up pictures of the Anasazi homes on the web-- it was amazing-- they lived on the sides of cliffs!  We Googled Anasazi homes, and voila, the images drew us in to a time and place that inspired us!

Anasazi pottery is marked by its black geometric designs "painted on" using herbal techniques.

This project took 2 weeks in Art-- one week they made the pots. The next week, they learned about and painted the geometric patterns to make it truly Anasazi-style.  Lucia did insist on using blue, which doesn't really meet the "Anasazi" standard.  But, she now knows what they did, and hey, she used her own artistic prowess to create something new.  I'm for it.

Some web resources: 

http://www.clayhound.us/sites/anasazi.htm
Clay Hound web: Anasazi Pottery
This website shows real pieces of found pottery from a thousand years ago!  It enlivened my girls' imaginations about how long ago people made and used this pottery.  

http://www.anasazipottery.net/
Anasazi Pottery Replicas:  This website shows wonderful pictures of replicas of Anasazi pottery.  It helped to inspire my girls in thinking about what geometric patterns they might incorportate in their own pottery designs.