• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Lil Bebe Academy

Helping Home Child Care Providers Thrive

  • Our Play School
    • Our Play School
    • Mission & Philosophy
    • Accepting Enrollment for August 2023
    • Registration Fees & Offerings
      • Disclosure
    • About
  • Consulting
    • Professional Development
    • Home Child Care Audience
    • Home Daycare Operations – Where to Start
  • Activities
    • Creative Learning
    • Science
  • Nature Play
    • Nature Play
  • THE BOOK
  • Contact
You are here: Home / Activities / Benefits Of Clay In Your Daycare Play

Benefits Of Clay In Your Daycare Play

April 7, 2019 By Lil' Bebe Academy Leave a Comment

Clay is an excellent sensory art material that can benefit your toddlers and preschoolers.  It is naturally from the earth, not synthetically made.  It helps with imagination, creativity, attention span, and fine and gross motor skills.

 

 

Benefits of Clay Play

  • Motor skills – pinch, grasp, knead, flatten, roll, stretch, mold clay into a shape
  • Creativity
  • Eye-hand coordination
  • Sensory Play –  how does it feel: texture, sticky, wet, cold / smell – earthy smell
  • Problem solves: how much clay should be rolled, flattened or stretched?  Should it be small, thick or long pieces?  As the child problem solve, they make choices to help with the process. While making birds, some children started with bigger pieces of clay.  As they built the bird, they realized the beak and eyes needed smaller bits of clay.  The biggest piece of clay was used for the body.  The letter B was formed by rolling and curving the clay.  After curving the clay they pinched it together to form the B.  They notice the letter P was formed before the B. However, adding one more curve gave them the B.

B is for Bird

What colors begin with the letter B?

The week before, we invited the children to make bird sculptures.   With open-ended questions, we asked, “Can someone describe a birds body?”, “How do you think the bird should be made?” The children told us we needed head, beak, belly, and feathers.  As we discussed the birds’ anatomy, clay was introduced.  It is recommended to use small group activities not large groups as clay can be a bit messy.

The clay was cut into small pieces and kept in a Ziploc bag; we had enough pieces for eight children.  Cutting the clay in advance saves class time and avoids chaos. During the sculpting process, one child assisted the toddlers with theirs; she demonstrated how the head, body, and beak needed to be formed.  She showed them how to knead, twist, break, pinch and push the clay.

That collaboration helped to make several birds that were air-dried and sent home.

Clay balls are added to the nest as bird eggs.

After playing with clay for days, my son made this baby boot similar to the one in his bedroom.  And that’s precisely what playing with clay does.  It fosters creativity and leads to more creations, even ones not related to the activity.

I encourage daycare providers, caregivers, nannies, and childminders to try the clay in your daycare – Miss Sue.

Want to know how to start your home daycare?

Here is a roadmap created by Denisse Garcia at Porch.com – click the link

 A comprehensive Guide to Starting Your Daycare

When I opened my daycare fourteen years ago, I wished I had this valuable guide to help my process.  Be sure to use the checklist.

XoXo – Miss Sue

Filed Under: Activities Tagged With: attention span, clay play, color recognition, fine motor skills, hand eye coordination, kids art, preschool activities, reggio inspired, sensory play, spring craft, toddler activities

Previous Post: « Kids Craft Painting Tree Bark
Next Post: Daycare Decor ~ Embroidery Hoops & Ribbons »

Reader Interactions

Latest from Lil Bebe

Place Based Learning In My Home Child Care – Why I Love This Learning Approach

Children Using Flowers on the Light Table in My Home Daycare Setting

Exploring Colors : Blue Meets Yellow | Home Child Care Hands On Learning

More Posts from this Category

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Download Your Free Ebook

I invite you to download the Free Mud Kitchen Guide and Recipes
  • Facebook
  • Instagram

Categories

Activities Creative Learning Daycare Operations Nature Play Outdoors Play Science Sensory Play

Etsy Store

Mindful Playthings

SHOP

 

Footer

This error message is only visible to WordPress admins

Error: No feed found.

Please go to the Instagram Feed settings page to create a feed.

Copyright © 2023 · Disclosure · Design by Sharon Hujik · Log in