Traveling Through Time by Bicycle- the beginning up to 1000 AD

For this lesson we focused on pottery and made pinch pots.  I first asked the kids a few questions like:
Why make pottery?
What do you think people living in ancient history would put inside their pots?
What would you keep in a pot?
I let them answer whatever they wanted- the questions are kind of open ended and I use them mostly to get the kids thinking about it more than a factual right or wrong answer.
I had a poster with pictures of pottery from a few different places around the world.  We talked about what they had in common and what was different.  I also wanted to emphasize the decorations on the pots were of things they would see around them- Egypt had hippos for example, and Mycenaean had dolphins and octopus.

Since we are traveling through time by bicycle in this set of lessons and bicycles are something we see today I asked the students to somehow work a bike into their decorations on their pots.  (I also said they could create a bike they thought would be possible in that time period if they wanted- my son talked about making clay wheels and stick frame for a bike, but he didn't do it.)

To make our pots we started with Amaco Mexican Pottery Clay purchased from Dick Blick.  It is a nice red clay that was very good to work with.  One 25lb. box was enough for roughly 40-50 small pots.  I used fishing line tied to a fishing bobber at each end (I found the round shape to be more comfortable than a block of wood, but not like that is a big deal, it's just what I had ready and available) to slice the clay - you wrap the the fishing line around the clay, cross it over and pull, and it gives a nice cut.  I then divided each (roughly 1" or 2) slice into four and gave each student a section.
Next we squished our clay into a ball and made it nice and round.
Then holding the ball in one hand, press the thumb of your other hand into the clay ball.  Now press the sides of the ball between your thumb and fingers as you turn the ball with the hand holding it.  Once you have a basic pot shape you can work it to your desired shape.
If the clay starts to crack a little you will want to get your fingers wet with a little clay and water on them to make a little bit of clay slime called "slip" and use this to smooth the cracks in your pot.
Once we had our pots to our desired shape and smooth we used toothpicks to draw designs or add textures.  I also had black and white paint if anyone wanted to paint on there pot.  We painted on our pots during the same class while the clay was still damp.
Just a note:  Once your pot dries you will want to remember that since it is air dry clay it will not hold liquids.