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Making Activities Project Three for Schools without Ceramics Facilities: Wallpaper Patterned Pots Suitable for all Key Stages Stage 1 Get some large sheets of thickish paper with a strong pattern on it. Wallpaper is ideal. Note: Decorating shops will often let you have their old sample books, which are ideal as they will give a variety of patterns / textures for the pupils to try. Alternatively, you could get the pupils to make their own design using strips of thin paper glued onto a sheet of sugar paper. Give each pupil a large sheet of paper. Each pupil is going to make 3 paper cylinders, all the same size, and from the same original sheet of paper. However, each should look different because of the pattern. Pupils need to cut a rectangle out of their sheet of paper that is big enough to wrap around their “former” with a bit of an overlap which they can glue to make the cylinder. (Note: you might want to make a wooden or cardboard template for them to draw around.) Using this first piece as a template to make sure all the pieces are the same size, pupils should then cut out two more rectangles. The template should be laid on the paper at a different angle than the original. Ideally one rectangle should be horizontal, one vertical and one at 45 degrees. Roll the paper around the former. Put glue on the overlap and stick. Once dry, (very quick if using prit stick), the former can be removed and the cylinder or “pot” should stand by itself. Do the same with the other two sheets of paper. Each pupil should now have 3 cylinders. Get them to study them carefully. If the paper has a strong, regular pattern such as the stripes illustrated here, the 3 cylinders will look completely different even though they are the same shape and size, and have been made from the same sheet of paper. If the paper had a more random pattern / texture - perhaps a floral pattern - then the difference won’t be so noticeable. Get the pupils to discuss why this might be so.