Practice your kids' books for inspiration for modeling clay projects.
Carry those bantam hands active on rainy days with modeling clay projects. Make a game out of mixing colors or buy premade colored clay. Bake the finished products according to the manufacturer's instructions and the projects will no doubt be on your shelf for many years to come. Push back the little sleeves, pull up a seat for every family member and make the projects together.
Favorite Foods
Kids are very vocal about their favorite foods. Whether Johnny prefers pizza or Jenny would live on chocolate cake if she could, let them make the foods they crave out of clay. Get creative with this one, encouraging them to add all the little details. Nestle little clay hot dogs in clay buns and top with strings of clay mustard and ketchup. For extra incentive, cook the actual food of the most realistic clay sculpture.
Create your own aquarium using clay sculptures your kids make. After a trip to the zoo, kids can make the animals they liked best. Or you can keep the project simple by making the pets you own.
Holiday Pins
Animals
Using animal books with plenty of pictures, pick a theme for the animals your kids make. Have each kid make an animal you find on a farm.To get the kids in a holiday spirit, make holiday pins. Make little hearts and glue them to a pin for Valentine's Day. Make shamrocks and pots of gold for St. Patrick's Day, flags for Fourth of July, pumpkins for Halloween, turkeys for Thanksgiving and reindeer and snowmen for Christmas. Attach a string or hook and hang up on the tree or around the house. The kids will love to see their work showcased.
Keepsake Boxes
Depending on the ages, you may need to make the boxes beforehand. Let the kids decorate their boxes, carving or adding clay shapes they make. Show them make little feet for the box, as well as a handle or knob. After being baked, use the boxes throughout the house to show off the work. Keep cotton balls on the counter in the bathroom and hard candy on the coffee table.
Home
For an exceptionally slow day, make a replica of your home out of modeling clay. As a family, you can choose to make either the inside or outside. Help your kids make the trees and swing set outside or the furniture inside. Have the kids make dioramas of their rooms. Focus on the furniture and room colors. It will be interesting to see the parts of the rooms they focus the most time on.
Volcano
Using a film container for the core of the volcano and crumpled tin foil to make the volcano shape, cover the volcano with polymer modeling clay, adding plenty of orange and yellow "lava" to the top and running down the sides. Create the eruption using chemical reactions you learned in science class. Whether you prefer stomach relief medicine, Eno, combined with starch, water and coloring, or the old favorite, baking soda and vinegar, try out the reaction beforehand, following directions carefully for safety.
