How Clay Work Opens Up A World of Imagination
Hey Clay is a clay set that gives step-by-step directions through its app on how to build characters ranging from dinosaurs to aliens to animals.
Hey Clay has unlocked creature super powers for my son. He spent all week building out the Aliens and Bugs kit, so now we have a great collection of characters on our shelf.
He has been focused on making all of the characters in each set, which took a lot of hand and eye coordination as well as the ability to follow directions and stay focused for hours.
If your kid is into making things, then I highly recommend the Hey Clay series. Even though the box says it is for 3 and up, I think the perfect age to start this is 5 years old.
There are 6 different sets: Monsters, Aliens, Animals, Birds, Dinos, and Bugs. The kits are widely available on Amazon, although we snagged ours at a local store.
Even after building the characters, enough clay is left over for kids to explore building characters from their own imagination. It’s great that the characters can provide enough training for them to build up confidence to then create their own creatures and objects.
“Clay work develops a child’s visual spatial sense. A child’s ability to interact tangibly with his surrounding space is reflective of his actual IQ. This is one of the links between Math and Art!” Lil’ Palette founder Lynn Teo said.
According to an article in PBS, “In fact, many of the core skills in art and math are closely related. Both disciplines require spatial reasoning skills and the ability to recognize patterns. Artists and mathematicians use geometry in their work — including shapes, symmetry, proportion, and measurement. ... Art can be analytical!”
I didn’t want the clay creatures to collect dust on our shelf, so I came up with a project to extend the life of the clay project for my son. The idea is to create a stop motion story based on the clay characters using an iPhone/iPad app called Stop Motion Studio. We are still in the storyboarding process, but it is nice to see how the clay is taking on a life of its own.
I was inspired by the Children’s Museum in San Francisco, which has a clay lab room with an animation station. I always loved going in there because it was nice to see how the kids could turn their clay structures into a story and take the digital copy home with them. By doing these projects at home, the kids have more time to create and work on their multimedia story. The possibilities are endless with Hey Clay.