After a recent snacktime story in High Five magazine about clay animals, Travis couldn’t wait to make our own. “Let’s do it right now!” he begged – good thing I had colored clay on hand!

We started out copying the animals from the story – a yellow chick, red crab, and green frog.

But soon Travis was off and running with his own ideas, proudly holding them up for me. A snail!

A starfish!

We used clay that won’t dry out since we weren’t concerned about keeping our creatures, but do use air-dry clay if your kids will want things a bit more permanent.

To add some fun, you can snip pieces of pipe cleaner to attach heads to bodies, as well as arms and legs. We tried out this method on a little bunny.

Mushing colors together made… a robot!

Toothpicks are great for adding details like mouths and eyes, or even chick feathers.

Travis soon decided the toothpick was a mosquito biting the animals, so then we needed clay band-aids.

Great fun on a rainy day!