Ooh, this is the ONLY type of bear that I wouldn’t be scared to see! Made from clay and slathered in acrylic paints (our kids were heavy handed with the paint, ha!) these pieces are “bear-y, bear-y” cute!
MATERIALS
- Air Dry Clay (Big Pack) (Little Pack)
- Shallow Bowl of Water
- Rolling Pin
- Toothpicks
- Acrylic Paints (I love Apple Barrel Brand)
- Browns
- Whites
- Red (Optional)
- Pipe Cleaner or Yarn
- Red Glitter Glue (Optional)
DIRECTIONS
- First, provide each child with a chunk of clay to roll into a flattened circle for the bear’s head.
- Next, invite the child to make two small flattened circles for the ears, two flattened circles for the eyes, and a flattened piece for the nose. and attach to the head. You MUST score the clay ears, eyes, and nose AND the part of the head the pieces are attaching
- WHAT IS SCORING? First, let’s talk about why we score clay. When you are using clay it is moist and sticks together easily. However, when clay dries those pieces that stuck together before now separate and fall apart.
- HOW TO SCORE? It’s the easiest thing. Scoring is simply adding little scratch marks to two pieces of clay that are going to attach. For example, place one of the clay ears the head and notice where they touch. On the ear piece of clay scratch little lines with the toothpick. On the head piece of clay scratch little lines with the toothpick on the spot where the ear will go. Connect the pieces and press. Repeat for all areas where you have two pieces of clay sticking to one another.
- HOW DO I TEACH THIS? I just model it! I made a bear model for the kids to observe how I scored each part. While I scored the clay I used the words “scratch, scratch, scratch” so the kids could hear my narrate the step. I did this for both ears, both eyes, and the nose. By the time the kids saw me do this FIVE TIMES they were ready to rock! MOTTO: Scoring touches scoring so pieces stay together when it dries.
- If you’d like, poke a hole at the top to add string later so families can easily hang these. Let the bears dry.
- After the bear is completely dry paint with acrylic paints! I brought out a bear book for the kids to use as inspiration to decide what color bear they wanted.
- We used glitter glue for the mouth but this could 100% be done with acrylic paint!
