Although it was only the first day of December, Katy Broach’s Newark High School classroom was brimming with upcoming holiday excitement as Alexa Johnson’s Lincoln School second graders eagerly tackled making Christmas trees out of clay with help from a mix of 10 helpful and very patient Ceramics 1 and Advanced Ceramics students.
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Before the youngsters arrived, Broach explained this project was more advanced than other collaborative ones her students have done with Lincoln School students this school year and last.
After the 19 second graders arrived, Broach carefully explained, before they began carving their trees, how the process would work and safe practices they would follow.
“The high schoolers will walk you through it,’’ she said.
Then, using paper stencils, students carefully carved two Christmas trees out of flattened pieces of clay and then fastened them together, with help from Broach’s students, to form a three-dimensional tree that later would be glazed, with one of four color selections of each student’s choosing, and kiln fired.
“This is fun,’’ second grader Zion McDonald said as she carefully smoothed out the clay in the center of her clay tree with help from NHS senior Emma Titus.
Students made their color preferences oriental caramel, blue azure, peppermint twist or mixed melon known on a sign-up sheet that Broach’s students would follow in the days ahead when they glazed the trees.
“It’s fun helping kids out,’’ NHS senior LeaMarie Simmons said December 1st. “Some of these little kids are very talented in art.”
Titus agreed.
“I like doing this. I have a little brother so working with these kids is easy. These are very nice kids,’’ she said.
Johnson said her students not only enjoy coming to NHS to work with the high schoolers, but it gave the opportunity to make a gift to give to someone for Christmas.
“The kids are very excited,’’ she said.
A week later, a few of Broach’s students, along with their teacher, went to Lincoln School Dec. 8th and enjoyed helping Johnson’s students decorate their trees.
“These moments of collaborations are exciting for the high school students,” Broach said. “They work hard to develop their skills in ceramics and the joy they have sharing them with younger students makes me proud to be an educator. To see my students be able to build positive relationships with others in their school community is why facilitating opportunities like this are so important. As educators, the longest lasting impact we can have is guiding our students to engage positively with others.”