Not Repeating Last Year

Last May, I was firing the kiln until the next-to-last week of school.  All because I didn't work in a clay project with third grade.  So, this year I decided to get 'er done early.  
My third graders learn about art history, who the first artists were, dig like archaeologists, learn about Egypt and sometimes the Greeks and Romans (depending on how quickly the year goes).  Right now we're learning about Sumeria and the Tell Asmar Figures. They always make paper people to decorate the halls, and I contemplated not doing that lesson to do a clay one, but I'm so dependent on that lesson later (for the paper folding and attaching techniques) that I kept that lesson AND we made small clay figures too.  
I was too busy to remember to take photos of our wet/in process clay figures, but here's a shot of them, fired and still in the kiln:

I cut a hunk of clay off for each student, had them cut part way up to be legs, gave them more to mold a head, arms and details and then used block tempera + gloss medium to paint them:

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I did have a few who didn't score and slip well enough so their heads didn't stay attached, but I also had a few who went wild with details:

I often feel like I rush them too much with clay (40 minutes is NOT long enough), but I just don't have the space to store them for them to work on them for multiple class periods.
Clay project in third grade, DONE.  If I'm firing that kiln through the end of May, it won't be due to third grade this year!