PAGE A12, KEIZERTIMES, AUGUST 27, 2021
Students get the opportunity to 'Play with Clay'
Play with Clay instructor Cindy Crosby gives pointers to student Taya Stovall .
By BROOKLYN FLINT
Of the Keizertimes
Normally when people think of a
math teacher, they imagine numbers
and graphs, but one teacher decided to
do something a little different.
Cindy Crosby is the instructor
for the clay class program that was
offered at McNary High School this
summer. She teaches math at Leslie
Middle School but became interested
in the idea of making things with clay.
“It was kind of exciting for the kids to
see something that is completely differ-
ent from what I teach. That was a fun
way to connect with the kids,” Crosby
said.
After deciding that she wanted to
teach a class about clay creations, it
then became a matter of figuring out
how Crosby was going to pull it off
and what projects she would have.
“I started doing my own research and
trying my best to see what’s the basic
materials they would need to have,”
Crosby said.
She discovered that air dry clay
would work best because they could
leave it over night to dry and she
wouldn’t need a kiln.
Crosby also felt like clay was a
good idea because there isn’t normally
many opportunities for middle school-
ers to use it. Typically, students have
to wait until high school art classes.
“It’s amazing beccause I asked the kids
okay, have you done this before? Have
you taken any clay lessons or anything
like that? And they’re like, 'no, I just
played here and there with Play-Doh
before,'” Crosby said.
Another reason Crosby decided
to teach a clay class was because she
felt like it was relaxing to do and if
Photo by BROOKLYN FLINT of Keizertimes
LIFE
someone made a mistake, it would
be easy to fix by adding more clay.
“Clay is something that you can’t really
mess up. If you make a mistake, you can
always fix it,” Crosby said.
The camp program — which had its
final session begin in early August and
conclude on Friday, Aug. 20 — started
out by teaching the campers differ-
ent techniques such as the pinching
method and how to use different tools
involved to sculpt clay.
After techniques, they worked on
magnets, pinch pots, coil pots, three-
tier planters and last but not least, clay
figures of popular characters in clayma-
tion movies.
Campers first made drawings of
their characters. Then when they were
ready to make their creation a reality,
they were handed a wooden block with
bendable wires. After they shape the
wires to match the shape of their char-
acter, the students put aluminum foil