Air-Dry Clay: 2 Projects

If you decided to explore using air-dry clay, here are a couple of ideas for using Sculpt-It and Model Magic. (Referred to in this post).

Creative Creatures, Dr. Seuss Inspired Birds:

Using Sculpt-it, children can create their own funky bird. We made these in conjunction with Dr. Seuss's birthday and a Dr. Seuss classroom study with Kindergarten students. Reading a Dr. Seuss book and discussing his wacky characters provides a great intro to this project. We also looked at the book, The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss which is a great resource for this lesson.

Helping children portion their clay can be key to this project depending on the age of the kids. I gave them a large piece and had them split it in half. They then took one half and split it in half again. Now they have one large and two medium pieces. They take one of the medium pieces and split it in half one more time for a total of one large, one medium, and two small pieces. Each are then rolled into balls. The large piece becomes the body, the medium piece is the head, and the two small pieces (flattened) are the feet. Using precut skinny dowels, children connect all the pieces (a dot of glue in each hole where the dowels connects helps to really secure the bird). I then give one more small piece of clay which they form into a beak and attach with a tiny "sip" of water on their finger. I then help the children mount their bird onto a piece of foam board with a glue gun (a supporting stick is placed in the back of the bird and wedged into the foam board). Children then add feathers--wings, head, and tail. The following day, they can paint the beak yellow, and eyes and feet black.

Some dried moss around the feet adds a nice finishing touch to this project.

Model Magic Insects:

This would be a quick and fun project during an insect study. After discussing ants specifically, we each built our own--with a head, thorax, and abdomen. During this guided lesson on how to use Model Magic (teaching children how to roll balls, press the clay together, insert legs and antennae--a dot of glue helps at the point of insertion in the clay) children really got the hang of the material. I then opened it up for children to make their own "insect" creations. Offering a variety of colors, children had lots of fun problem solving how their insects would stand up, what their habitat would be, what they'd eat, and of course what they'd look like.

google eyes finish off this simple insect project