Working With Clay

In their bilingual book, Modeling with Children Under Six, Roxana Salazar and Maria Carmen Schulze from Bolivia, talked about why introducing children to working with clay is important:

"Ceramics is nothing but mud cooked from the earth.  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....

"From the youngest years of childhood children are ready to create, and the mold ability of clay is a wonderful tool.  By playing with the clay, making bags, snakes, etc., creative aptitudes are encouraged without intention.  First the child imprints his own prints in the clay without realization or awareness, until he is able to connect his idea 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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