Pottery

Find the pottery objects in the collection of images. Use images of Maya pottery to design and make replicas from air-drying clay. Follow the same patterns and images, and try out some of the same techniques to make the replicas, like painting, incising and impressing.

Teaching Outcomes:

• To explore Maya pottery techniques.
• To plan and carry out an experiment to test different methods of constructing pots.

Children will:

• Devise an experiment about pottery making techniques.
• Make pots using several different handmade techniques.
• Decide, based on their experience, which method the Maya use.

• Maya objects
• Timeline of Maya pottery
• Different hand-made pottery techniques
• Testing methods of constructing Maya pots
• An experiment to test what temper was used in Maya pots

• Web-enabled devices
• Air drying clay, clay tools
• Option to use firing clay and a number of different tempers, e.g. coarse sand, straw, crushed shell, aquarium gravel)

Maya pottery styles from haciendapetac.com
Timeline of Maya pottery over the centuries from metmuseum.org
Primitive pottery: adding temper to clay from practicalprimitive.com