Air Dry Clay Projects for Kids

Every now and then I feel the need to delve into what some people might consider a kids’ craft for my mental well-being. Lately it has been air dry clay. It’s easy to make your own air dry clay or you can buy it and use it to make lots of different things.

Playing with clay is stress relieving for both kids and adults, and with these projects you can make things that could be gift-worthy come holiday season.

The classic of course is making pinch pots, which is so easy to do you probably don’t need instructions, but just in case, this tutorial from Friends Art Lab is a good one. Pinch pots are great to do with a group of kids because they don’t take a lot of time or supplies, and kids will have fun painting them after they are dry.

Or you can make these adorable birds with pinch pot nests from Artful Parent. These mosaic pinch pots with lids from Handmade Charlotte are also great.

But there are lots of other fun things kids can do with air dry clay.

These pretty clay vase candle holders form Play Learn Inspire can be made with a printable template to helps kids keep them the same general size. I love the idea of using different things to stamp them as well as different ways to make holes.

Kids can shape clay into their favorite animals to make a craft like these air dry clay cats from NurtureStore. Or they can make their own creatures with this clay monster tutorial from One Little Project.

Make sweet pendants kids can decorate, paint and wear with this tutorial from Kitchen Table Classroom. Or grab some seashells from your last trip to the beach and make seashell pendants with this idea from Moms and Crafters.

Pendants are only a short journey from the classic air dry clay or salt dough Christmas tree ornaments, so you can also just pull out your cookie cutters and let kids decorate simple shapes to decorate the tree. Once you get started with air dry clay I’m sure you’ll come up with lots of ways to use it!

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Christmas Gifts Kids Can Make

Shark Week generally happens in July, but any time is a good time to learn more about sharks.

First, start with some fun whale facts like these from Kids Craft Room. Here I learned about the dwarf lantern shark, which is the smallest shark and only grows to about 6-8 inches (about 15-20 cm) long. It also emits light. How cool is that?

Natural Beach Living has some great printable shark information guides, where kids can learn about different kinds of sharks, match the facts to the pictures, or print out doubles and do a shark memory game.

Living Life an Learning has some great shark activity pages including the parts of a shark, types of sharks, a crossword puzzle and more. Also check out their parts of a shark and word scramble download, and a life cycle worksheet.

Learn about how sharks float with this great activity from JDaniel4’s Mom.

Need more facts about sharks? This fact pact from The WOLFe PACK on Teacher Pay Teachers includes fact sheets, a printable flip book, informational text, vocabulary, comprehension questions and more.

Living Montessori Now has a great collection of shark themed activities with a Montessori inspired twist. You’ll find a shark roll and cover, shark phonics and lots more shark activities Deb has collected from all over the Internet.

Remember the “Sharknado” movie? A Few Shortcuts turned the combination of sharks and tornadoes into a fun science activity. You’ll need a bottle connector for this project but otherwise should have everything you need on hand. Use their template to make your sharks out of aluminum foil. So fun!

You can also do some shark themed coloring with these coloring pages from Encouraging Moms at Home. Or make a cool 3D shark with this template from korkotak. And there are tons of different shark crafts collected in this post from Kids Activities Blog.

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