Modeling with Young Children

05/23/2014

You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the book, Modeling with Young Children, that is included in our "Spectacular Spring Sale," Roxana Salazar talks about why modeling is a good activity for children under six:

"Modeling means to make an object, a body or a figure, from a material that can be formed and change shape easily, like the mixture of earth with water. Without other resources, modeling with clay becomes an activity that can help to develop creative imagination in a child living in poverty....

"Working with clay is a technically complex art. However, children practice it with great enthusiasm. There are several methods to create pieces from mud: modeling by hand is the one that we most frequently practice with the children as this is the way they find it easiest to create, improvise, and practice without any restriction. However, many children are fascinated and enjoy creating vessels with coiling technique, while others like to level the clay with a roller and to decorate it with diverse textures, by inlaying or making incisions and combing....

"From the youngest years of childhood, children are ready to create.... By playing with the clay, making bags, snakes, etc., creative aptitudes are encouraged without intention. First the child imprints their own prints in the clay without realization or awareness, until they are able to connect their ideas of fantasy with the imprints, and with the clay, and that is when the imagination can start to fly. With constant experimentation, children confirm their ability, and their happiness created by this then brings a higher creation level."

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