Fun with Clay

Children love making things.  Give a child a lump of plasticene or play-dough, and they will happily make it into people, animals, shapes, bowls, plates or they will roll it out to make a snake or a worm !  Sometimes they will just enjoy squishing it between their fingers.  Clay is nature's answer to play-dough, and, if you think about it, clay has been used for thousands of years to make things, including pots, vessels for water, plates, bowls and all kinds of things, including decorative items and toys !

Natural clay can be found near to river beds - look out for a 'milky' colour to the water - and ranges in colour from reds and oranges to greys and whites.  The different colours are because of the different minerals that make up the clay in different areas.  You can identify clay (as opposed to just mud) because it has a distinctive slippery texture when you gather it up.   If you find what you think might be clay, scoop up a ball about the size of golf ball, add a little water to make it into a dough.  Then roll the ball of dough into a worm, about 1 cm in diameter, and wrap it around your finger.  If the dough starts to break apart it may be that it isn't clay, or, if it IS clay, it might be that it is a particularly poor quality of clay !  This being the case, look elsewhere !

If you don't have access to natural clay, you can use air drying clay instead !

Making a Clay Pot

Clay pots are always fun to make, and they are not particularly difficult to put together.  You will need ... 

A tennis ball sized lump of air drying clay.

• Water

• sticks/spatulas

• a hard smooth surface to work on.

Optional ... 

Paint, comb for 'dragging' patterns into the clay, cocktail sticks, googly eyes or any other decorative items.

Making your pot ...

Step 1 : Take a piece of your play, about the size of a ping pong ball, and flatten it into the pam of your hand.  Then use your thumb to make an indent in the centre, and start to build up the sides.

Step 2 : Take another ping pong ball sized piece of clay, and roll it out to make an 'worm'.  Try to make sure the work is the same diameter all the way along its length.  Slightly moisten the rim of the piece you made in step 1.  Take care to to make the clay too wet, as this might make it hard to handle !   Now start to coil the clay worm onto the rim of the base that you made in step in.

Step 3 : repeat step 2, using another worm of clay, and build up the wall of the pot.  This can get fiddly !   You may choose to 'smooth' the inside and outside walls of the pot as you go, but be careful not to handle it too much.  Smoothing the walls will give the pot a better chance of being watertight !  You can use as many coils as you want to build the put as high as you want, but be aware that the taller the pot gets, the more chance there is of it collapsing !

Step 4 :  Make another worm of clay, but this time make it thicker than the previous worms.  Once you have rolled it out, slightly 'flatten' the worm, so that it looks a bit like a thick ribbon of clay.  Press this ribbon onto the inside of the pot, at the top, with half of the ribbon sticking up above the first coil.  Make sure it is well attached to the wall of the pot.

Step 5 - Once the ribbon is place, gradually 'bend' the ribbon out so that it becomes a lip around the top of the pot.

Step 6 : Leave the clay pot to dry for a day or two !

Making a Troll ... and other things ! 

CAs well as making 'real world' things, children could, as we have already stated, just let their imaginations run riot !  They could make trolls, gremlins, goblins, dragons or anything they fancy !