Modeling Clay Activity for Kids

One of the great scholars, Thomas Aquinas once defined humans as ‘a being with brain and hands’. We enjoy the most when we employ both our brain and hands simultaneously to produce something that is creative and at the same time useful. When we were kids, we used to play with clay to make different shapes out of that. Fruits, vegetables, and dolls were the usual items that were made from the clay. Those days, modeling clay wasn’t available in the market; so we used natural clay to prepare those items. But now in this era of electronic gadgets, this culture has almost abolished. Kids are so busy these days with their video games that they don’t get the time to play natural games.

This has also ruined the creativity of the kids. Introducing kids to the world of clay in an early age has many folded benefits. It is a natural play item that does not causes any harm to the little learners. Sharpening the creativity is only the one side of the coin, it also inspires our intelligence. The little ones also enjoy this activity as this engages their full attention span and also their hand-eye coordination.

Teaching your kid how to model something with the clay can be good past time that offers both parents and kids to develop a healthy relation. It is not that after knowing the art of clay modeling, your child would become a good sculpture or something, but it definitely can turn into a creative play to the kids. Being a parent, you can help your child to acquire this skill by giving them little guidelines. Here are some of the tips by which you can guide your little ones:-

1.The first step is to generate the interest of the kids towards this creative activity. You can attract your little ones by demonstrating them home fun filled activity is clay modeling,

2. The next is to provide some colorful clay to the young learners. You can also provide the kids the pictures of fruits, vegetables, animals and birds as a reference to them so that they can create their favorite shapes out of these pictures,

3. Third is to guide the kids as to how to shape the clay to create different pattern. These are simple steps and kids enjoy learning the activity,

4. Teaching the kids to create different shapes from the modeling clay also helps them in accomplishing their projects. They can create body parts with modeling clay so that a better idea of the different parts,

5. Use modeling clay instead of paint to decorate a blank piece of heavy, textured board. Have kids sketch a scene, portrait or picture onto the board. They can then fill in their sketches by laying thinly pressed pieces of clay inside the lines and pushing the pieces into the board to secure them in place,

Kids love modeling clay. Their imaginations run wild as they spend hours creating unique masterpieces. You can really pique their interest in modeling clay by helping them make their very own.