How to Make a Arctic Wolf Out of Clay Easy

Celebrate Earth Day with kids by making this Earth craft from air-dry clay!

I always get excited about trying new art and craft supplies! Our latest discovery was in the sculpting department and, after a few tries, turned out to be my favourite air-dry clay to use with kids.

Now, I've long had a favourite for my own projects. It's La Doll Premier, which allows fine sculpting and small detail, and gets quite solid when dry. Crayola Model Magic, that we started using recently, isn't at all like this! Initially, the difference put me off, but when I saw what kids were making, I immediately fell in love with it.

Crayola Model Magic is puffy and light, and even when completely dry, it's a bit like marshmallow. But it's very easy for kids to sculpt with. Pieces of clay don't stick to fingers or tables, but stick to each other very well. There are lots of colours available, which makes creating cute and vibrant crafts a breeze.

One more thing – this isn't a sponsored post. :-) I just genuinely loved the material and wanted to create more projects to build together with the kids from it. This is our go at sculpting the Earth.

4 Reasons to Do This Craft with Kids

1. The initial idea came as a way to celebrate the approaching Earth Day by making little Earth figurines.
2. When making Earth expressions, you can talk about whether the Earth is alive or not. (There is no consensus on the answer, so it is a good question for discussion.)
3. Next, it is interesting to discuss with children what expression the Earth would have if it could have emotions like a human. Would it be sad? Or happy?
4. Finally, it is also a good craft to make, while studying maps and atlases to reinforce the idea that different colours can represent different landscapes.

Materals

We used Crayola Model Magic. We had a bucket with yellow, blue, red and white inside, and bought blackseparately. We didn't have green, but it was easy to create by mixing blue and yellow together. One of my kids really enjoyed the mixing.

If you have a different clay you like, this tutorial would work for it as well, with whatever necessary modifications. It'd be very easy to repeat with a polymer clay like Sculpey, and the results will probably be sturdier, but you will need to bake it. Or you can use air-dry clay of other brands and stain it before sculpting or paint it afterwards.

Tutorial

1. Roll a blue ball.
2. Attach pieces of green for continents. Use little pieces to make islands. You can do that while looking at the globe, but don't worry if it doesn't stay very true to life.
3. Roll the ball again. See how it all blended together?
4. Make the eyes by rolling two small balls, then squishing them into the surface.
5. Add tiny highlights with white.
6. Make cheeks the same way you did the eyes. Roll a thin small sausage and make it into a mouth.

Lots of variations are possible! These are the ones we made.

These two are the creations of my kids. My son (6) is very much an independent artist, so his Earth was a unique creature. He added a nose and some white for the snowy Arctic and Antarctica. My daughter (3), on the other hand, seems to really like following instructions, and so I walked her through step-by-step, helped a tiny bit, and was proud of how well she did. The little perfectionist was not happy with how it turned out though – she thought the mouth didn't turn out right.

According to the kids, we have got "a mommy Earth, a daddy Earth, a boy Earth and a baby Earth".

When you make your own Earth, we'd be delighted to see it! Tag us on facebook or instagram (@adventureinabox).

Also Try!

As an Earth day activity or to get yourself acquainted with the recycling program in a new neighbourhood, a recycling game is a fun way to introduce kids to the basics (and complications!) of re-purposing waste.

Make fantasy dragon eggs with air-dry clay!

Thanks for reading!

grazianofoxys1977.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.adventure-in-a-box.com/planet-earth-clay-craft-for-earth-day-earth-study/

Share this post