Today was the last day of A+'s week-long wheel-throwing afternoon summer camp at Parkdale Pottery in Toronto. She's focused on wheel throwing at the moment, not hand-building. It's hard to find pottery wheel lessons for 9-year-olds because of strength and safety concerns. A+'s been doing the all-ages 2-hour wheel-throwing workshops at Clay With Me independently around once a month, and she's also tried painting premade pieces. It felt like a minor miracle to find a half-day camp focused on just what she wanted.

Before the workshop, A+ wasn't sure about trying out a different studio, since she'd gotten comfortable at Clay With Me. She settled in quickly, though, and even took charge of packing her snacks and getting her clothes and apron ready for the next day. It was great to see her grow more independent.

A+ likes to work with smaller balls of clay so that they're easier to centre and handle. In Clay with Me workshops, she usually asks the instructors to divide a ball in half. Because the Parkdale Pottery camp was for kids 8-12 years old, the clay balls they provided were the right size for her hands, and the instructors also showed the kids how to prepare their own.

The first three days focused on wheel throwing. The instructor complimented A+ on her centreing skills. She's gotten pretty good at bracing herself so that she can form the puck right in the middle. She also learned about adding attachments by scoring the clay and adding slip. The fourth day was about refining and trimming, and the fifth day was about glazing. She enjoyed learning how to marble her pieces with interesting blue-and-white swirls, and I enjoyed her description of the process: layering the underglazes, then swirling them around to create the design. This was the first time she was able to trim and glaze her own pieces, since the Clay with Me workshops are one-off sessions where the pieces are all finished with a clear food-safe glaze. Parkdale Pottery will fire A+'s pieces with a food-safe glaze too, and we'll pick them up in a few weeks.

When kids finished early or wanted to take a break, they explored hand-building, drew circles with markers on paper attached to pottery wheels, worked with beads, and played the board game Trouble. The instructors did a good job of managing the occasional squabbles.

Looking at other students' work on the shelves and the instructional posters on the wall, I saw interesting ideas that we might try in future workshops. (Gotta make a face vase…)

The half-day summer camp was from 1 PM to 4 PM from Monday to Friday, and it cost $250+HST. There was a full-day option, but A+ wasn't interested in hand-building. I think the half-day was worth it, especially since I managed to squeeze in about 2 hours of consulting every day even with setting aside time to bike back and forth. We're gradually transitioning to the phase where she wants to learn about things I can't teach her, and paying for clay workshops is a great way to access people's specialized expertise and equipment. I don't know how many kids there were in the camp, but A+ was happy with the teacher-student ratio and felt like she had enough time to get whatever help she needed.

From her previous workshops, we've collected a good selection of little ice cream bowls and saucers. This camp will add a few more saucers and tiny bowls. It might be a good idea to learn how to make little treats (maybe chocolate truffles?) that we can place on the saucers for an extra-special birthday gift. ("Wrapped in plastic and tied with a bow?" she asks.)

Next steps: We'll probably continue with the Clay with Me workshops, since A+ likes the studio and is comfortable with the process. I also want to explore a little handbuilding with polymer clay and air dry clay, and some sketching to imagine pieces. Maybe she'll get into that too. When we come up with pieces we really like, we can do one of the handbuilding workshops at a pottery studio in order to make a food-safe version, or consider a clay-at-home package (Shaw Street Pottery) that can be fired. When A+ turns 10, she'll be old enough for the wheel courses at places like Create Art Studio and 4cats. They generally schedule their teen wheel courses on weekdays, though, and a weekend would probably be better for us.

A+ wants to do this summer camp again next year. She prefers unstructured time and plenty of afternoon playdates, so it'll probably be just one week, like this year. We'll see when we get there. Plenty to explore. It's nice to have a craft, and maybe this will be one of hers.