Dinosaur world with clay

Clay play is a great experience for kids. Clay is really quite different to playdough in the way it feels and the way it can be handled. It’s dense and heavy, but can be smooth and soft and slippery. It’s incredibly tactile, and kids love its earthy quality, a bit reminiscent of mud pies.

It can be pounded and shaped, squeezed and squished, poked and smoothed.

Kids find it fascinating to try a new medium that needs to be manipulated in a different way to get the results they want. This was the first time I’d given my kids clay to play with – mostly because it can be hard to find, except in tiny packaged quantities. I didn’t want their first experience with clay to be finicky and fiddly. I wanted bulk clay that they could really let loose with. Besides, I had a project in mind, and we needed a decent quantity of clay to make it happen.

In the end I ordered a slab of clay from an art supply store. Luckily clay is pretty cheap, and as long as it’s kept well wrapped in cling wrap and stored in an airtight container, it will last for ages.

For this activity, I gave each child a foil tray and a hunk of clay. Clay can be easily cut with a piece of fishing line.

Then I just let them explore and play freely for a while, getting a feel for the new medium and what it could do.

After some time, I gave them some exciting news. We were going to make a dinosaur world!

I showed them how to squish out their clay to fill the foil tray. Then the kids set to work shaping their landscape. We used a bowl with a little water in it to help them smooth and shape.

They made hills and hollows..

And of course, volcanoes!

With the landscapes created, I let the kids go around the garden and snip pieces of greenery to vegetate their dinosaur world. Yes, don’t be shocked, I let my kids use scissors independently. It’s a life skill they absolutely need to learn – essential once they get to school. Child-sized safety scissors for the little guy, bigger ones appropriate for the eldest.

Then we brought our foliage inside and “planted” the greenery into the trays.

We also added some glass pebbles for decoration…

Some small plastic dinosaur figurines to inhabit the wild land…

… And some blue cellophane for rivers and lakes. After all, every dino needs a reliable water source.

The boys loved this activity from start to finish. For preschool-age kids, this had it all – sensory, tactile play as they shaped and formed and explored the clay; creativity, role-play and imagination as their miniature worlds took shape. It was sweet to see the pride they took in creating their dinosaur worlds and interacting with them.

This activity would also work equally well with a range of ages. Older kids would have fun creating more intricate clay landscapes. Heck, this even looked like fun to me. You’re never too old to play with some clay.

When you’re finished, you can choose to either leave the clay worlds out to air-dry and harden, or consolidate the clay back into an air-tight package to use again another day. This activity only took a relatively small piece of our slab – we still have heaps left over.

What do you think – is this an activity you’d like to try? When was the last time you or your kids played with some clay?

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