Preschool activities have always had some sort of clay or play dough included in their curriculum and for good reason. Clay is a wonderful activity for all early childhood age children and older.

What many early childhood educators don’t know, however, are the options available in the molding and sculpting arena. Many Moms and kindergarten teachers just resort to the old play dough scheme.

Play-dough, however, is is passe. Aside from the fact that so many Moms can’t stand it as it gets old, the it gets piecey and gets in their kids hair and in the carpets and in the food.

So for those of you who want children to do sculpting and modeling in the best way possible there are other choices besides play dough.

Here are your options:

The first image above is white clay and the image below is gray clay.

The truth is up until recently I always called this type of clay “gray clay”.

It wasn’t until we ordered some of this type of clay and it came in white that I realized it really the same type of clay only in different color. I think it also comes in red.

The white clay actually came in 4 chunks and was easier to distribute.

The gray clay more often comes in a large chunk as seen below and needs to be cut with a piece of string or wire as shown below. I actually wrote a post a while back  play dough is not as great as gray clay that gives  step by step instructions in using this clay.

So the real name of this clay is hardening clay I guess. I know Marblex sells it and it comes in 5 pounds and 25 pound packages.

This is NOT the kind of clay that you put into an oven to bake.

It gets used, either stored to use again one day or left out to dry.

The cool thing about this kind of clay though is that it’s always reconstitutable.

Even if it’s all hardened, it can be reconstituted by smashing it down (through a plastic) with a hammer and letting it soak for a few days in water.

The clay comes packaged in plastic and as I said if it needs to be cut, you do that with yarn or string.

This type of clay is the real thing. It’s like the professional stuff with the other kinds of clay being the ones pretending to be real.

Anyone with any real interest in sculpting would only use this type of clay.

Gray or white clay for that matter gives the children opportunities to do stuff with it that cannot be done with other kind of clay.

Aside from the pounding and pinching and rolling and all the things they can do to the clay, its an EXCELLENT form of art therapy. It is a very sensory material and the children do get dirty with it. (which is great for young children)

A child is angry or frustrated, or wants to pull out his sisters hair, let him or her at that clay.

The clay listens to your hands. It stands when you tell it to (as long as you make it thick enough) and you can make so many things with it if you are finished experimenting with it.

I have another post that describe the best way to store your clay.

The other two types of clay I want to talk about (clay is really the wrong word for them)is the play dough type and the plasticine type.

I am using play dough even though play dough is a brand to mean that specific type of clay or play dough that is colored and comes in small canisters and you can buy them anywhere.

They are definitely great for rainy days,  does not get the tables and children as dirty as the gray clay does, even though as I said it does get piecy and in kids hair. But this play dough is just not as satirizing as good gray clay.

The children can pound it and cut it and pinch it but can’t do much else with it.

So as I said its a great filler, easy to buy and easy to clean until it gets old.

The third type of clay here  I want to discuss here is the plasticine type.

Its an oil based clay, is had to use until it gets soft so its not that great for art therapy use, or for very little children.

Lots of older children use this type to make dioramas for school projects. It comes in lots of colors and is actually very good for fine motor skill which is why they get used for dioramas. Young children will not want to wait till it softens in their hands and will not get the same experience using it as the gray clay.

The plasticine often come packaged the way the image shows below.

I know there are many more types of modeling materials out there but the truth is that when it comes down to it, most of them are derivatives of these 3 types.

So try them all just be aware of the different experiences each of them brings to the table.