All Fired Up!

Pit firing is an ancient form of firing pottery. The process creates interesting colors and designs on the pots depending on what materials are burned in the fire.

My students are instantly excited about any lesson that involves clay. Being a potter, I enjoy introducing my students to new concepts about ceramics. All of my students have studied the North American Indians and have seen examples of their pottery and other crafts. Rather than just explaining how the pottery was fired, I thought my students would understand better by seeing the process happen before their eyes. This was my inspiration for doing a pit fire with my fifth graders.

Pit firing is an ancient form of firing pottery. The process creates interesting colors and designs on the pots depending on what materials are burned in the fire. For our firing, I collected raw cotton, seaweed, and copper pot scrubbers. These materials are placed in thin strands on the pottery. The cotton creates a range of color from blue to gray when burning. The gases from the copper and seaweed tend to cast a pink or reddish rust tint on the pottery.

Getting Starred

Students created coil pots with cone 04 white clay. Coil pots are good for this firing process because they tend to be thick and sturdy. As they added coils, I reminded students to smooth the outside and inside of the pot with their fingers. If the surface of the clay is smooth, the colors created by the fire will be very intense. After the pottery dried, we fired it once in the electric kiln.

I enlisted help from a local potter with some experience at pit firing to help me plan for the day of the firing. She recommended getting firewood that burns hot and three or four garbage bags of sawdust. My husband visited a carpenter's wood shop, and the carpenter was more than happy to get rid of some of his sawdust. Another very important preparation for this project was a call to the fire marshal to get a fire permit. A day before the firing, we dug a pit approximately eight feet in circumference and two feet deep. This was a perfect size for about one hundred pots.

The Big Day

The day of the event, my fifth graders were instructed to bring their pots to the pit as soon as they arrived at school. While a volunteer helped the students wrap their pots with cotton, seaweed, and copper, we poured the sawdust in the bottom of the pit and situated the pots reside. It is a good idea to have at least three volunteers help with this process.

After all pots were in the pit, we stacked the wood and newspaper on top and lit the fire. All of the students were there to watch the incredible inferno at a safe distance behind a rope that surrounded the fire. At this point, the fire needed to burn down slowly for about six hours. I, along with my volunteers, kept watch over the fire and observed the pots slowly emerge from the flames and ashes. We also invited the other classes in the school to visit the pit to find out more about it.

At the end of the day, the students came back out to the fire to watch us pull their pots out of the ash with tongs. This was the most exciting part of the day. As we pulled each pot out, students said, "Wow, look at your pot!" or "Cool! Stephanie's pot has lots of purple on it!"

Although this type of project was very time consuming and had the potential to be dangerous, with a few safety precautions there is merit in doing this activity with students instead of just telling them about it. They learned about the pit firing process and had fun too.

Materials Needed

Low-fire white clay Any of the following: seaweed, raw cotton, or copper pot scrubbers (cut up in pieces) firewood newspaper sawdust

For Safety

Fire permit from fire marshal, fire extinguisher, a water source, rope to block off the area directly around the fire

NATIONAL STANDARD

Students know the differences between materials, techniques, and processes.

Ticia M. Valentine is an art teacher at First Flight Elementary School in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.