Sea Urchins (Pre-K through 1st grade)

Recently I’ve gotten into making air dry clay in the kitchen. It’s easy, quick, and super fun to make. This project is a simple off-shoot of the homemade air-dry clay and it’s super fun for summer art with your younger students. Warning, although this is a easy project, it can be super messy.

Supplies:

2-3 batches of Air Dry Clay (Homemade is what I used)

Toothpicks, (2-3 containers worth)

Parchment or Wax paper

Washable paint

Bowls to put the paint into (Probably need about 20 bowls, depending on how big your class is)

1 roll of Paper Towels

Dark colored crayons (1 per student)

Smocks or old T-shirts

Paint Brushes, 1 per student.

Trays (about 5 or 6) (Optional)

Cups of water

Prep:

Make your Clay, Let cool then roll into little balls, 1 ball per student, place into large containers covered with a lid or a wet paper towel so that it doesn’t dry out.

Lay out toothpicks in the center of your tables, easy to reach. I like to put them into bowls so they are easy to grab

Lay out paint brushes and cups of water to clean them off in

Put your bowls of paints onto the table, so that they are easy to reach, only start out with a small amount per bowl, so that you don’t waste paint.

Dilute the paint a little bit with water.

At each seat, lay out a ball of clay the size of a Childs palm, onto a piece of parchment or wax paper.

Steps:

**A good pre-step to start out with is first showing your class to roll a ball of clay in their hands. Some students won’t know how to do this and it will be their first time doing so.

1.) Have your students write their names onto their parchment paper in crayon

2.) Have your students gently smoosh the clay so it forms a half sphere onto their parchment paper, This will be the body of their sea urchin. The toothpicks will be the needles.

3.) Next they should figure out what color(s) the want their sea urchin.

4.) Have them dip their first toothpick into a paint of their choice

5.) Then, have them stick their toothpicks into the body of their sea urchins. Repeat until satisfied.

6.) The paint from the toothpicks will have most likely saturated the body of clay, but f they want to, they can take a paint brush and either spread the paint around a little bit, or add more paint to it. Just don’t let them get the clay too wet, it will start to disintegrate.

7.) Finally, you can stick all the sea urchins onto little trays and place them in the sun to dry. They will crack just a little bit. It’s just a part of the process.

Clean Up

After your project, have your students wash their hands with soap and water.

One student per table should be in charge of washing the paint brushes and rinsing out the cups and then putting them away

Give 2 students in the class a spray bottle with soapy water in it. Instruct them to do 3 sprays per table.

Pass out paper towels and have the rest of the class wipe down their tables to get any clay and paint off of it.

Have them look around for any spilt water or garbage on the floor.

Have the kids throw their paper towels in the Green Waste Bins

Have them take their smocks off and show them how to fold them.

After the Project

Discussion Time;

I like to seat my students in a circle around the classroom. I like to ask them what they liked and disliked about the project. What they might have done differently. Have they ever seen this creature in real life? What did they know about it? Then I like to bring up fun facts about the animals they just created.