Have you used clay with your kids? Mine love it! I try to provide them with lots of different art materials to pick from and clay is always a favourite. Recently our nature tray was getting quite full and I decided that something needed to be done with it!

I sat the nature tray on the table in the play room, two lumps of clay, and a jar of clay tools. Mission accomplished! Preparation time: 30 seconds.

The girls set to work combining the clay with the natural materials into beautiful sculptures.

At first they found a rolling pin to flatten out their clay so they could make ‘islands’ and stick their nature pieces into the clay.

It’s always interesting to see the different ways they use the materials. My 3 year old loved stacking as much as she could on and filling up all the spaces. It was quite a balancing act in the end!

My 5 year old seemed to be more particular with where she put things, taking her time and telling me a story about what she was creating.

She even used some paperbark and rubbed her nails against it to make snow falling over her sculpture ‘because it’s winter and in some parts of Australia it snows’…

They both enjoy working together and are often inspired by what the other one is doing.

In the end we had two beautiful sculptures made from lovely natural materials that we had collected from our adventures around our neighbourhood.

We transferred the sculptures to some plastic mats to dry and they are both now displayed on our art shelf. Such a simple activity prepared on the spur of the moment that was so engaging for them. It just reminds me that you don’t need anything fancy or a lot of time to prepare interesting art explorations for children.