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Ocean Animal Clay Art

We are excited to be taking part in our first Storybook Summer post. I am a sucker for a good rhyming book and Over In the Ocean In A Coral Reef by Marianne Berkes is fabulous and one of my new favorites. One of our summer themes at Mac-n-Taters is Ocean animals and this book fits perfectly into our theme. Storybook Summer gave us the opportunity to explore a new to us craft medium, clay, and from there our clay Ocean animals were born.

Ocean Animal Clay Art to go with Over In the Ocean In A Coral Reef is great for an Ocean theme for toddlers, preschoolers, and school aged kids.
If you were not aware, artist Jeanette Canyon created all of the breathtaking illustrations using clay. How cool is that? When I found this out I knew we had to try our hand at making some of our very own.

Over In the Ocean In a Coral Reef is a vibrantly illustrated, rhyming book that takes us into the depths of the coral reef where we find numerous deep sea creatures and their babies. We journey deeper and deeper into the ocean while counting and  “squirting” and “darting” and “puffing” with the octopi, clownfish, and pufferfish. While reading through and counting our way up to 10 with all the ocean animal babies, I would stop and have my two year old count with me. Not only does this help her with counting, but also one-to-one correspondence.

Ocean Animal Clay Art to go with Over In the Ocean In A Coral Reef is great for an Ocean theme for toddlers, preschoolers, and school aged kids.

Not only do we learn different things about each of the animals through the written words of the story, but the author has also included some amazing informational facts about each of the ocean animals at the back of the book for more learning fun.

Now our clay art was no Jeanette Canyon clay art, but it was so much fun to create. At 2, the modeling clay we got was still a bit tough for her to manipulate so I did a lot of the creation, but she played with it and helped soften it which helped to strengthen her muscles in her hands.

We have included links to the products and books used in this activity. If you buy from these links we may earn a small commission.

MATERIALS TO MAKE OCEAN ANIMAL CLAY ART

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Over In the Ocean In a Coral Reef book

-Modeling Clay: White Air Dry, Colorful Air Dry, Non Drying, or use one of our Salt Dough Recipes

-If using white Air Drying clay, you will want to get some paint and brushes for your little ones to paint their creations after they dry.

Ocean Animal Clay Art to go with Over In the Ocean In A Coral Reef is great for an Ocean theme for toddlers, preschoolers, and school aged kids.

Join Storybook Summer for 4 weeks of reading, connecting, creating and enjoying books

DIRECTIONS:

Read the story together and discuss how each of the pictures are made of clay.

Ocean Animal Clay Art to go with Over In the Ocean In A Coral Reef is great for an Ocean theme for toddlers, preschoolers, and school aged kids.

Give your kids some clay and let them sculpt some of the ocean animals from the book. We chose to do the octopus, or applesauce as my little 2 year old likes to say, and a clownfish. You can have the book open to the specific page so they can try to make it look like the ones from the book or just let them create their own creatures. If you used the air dry clay, wait a few days and then have them paint it.

Ocean Animal Clay Art to go with Over In the Ocean In A Coral Reef is great for an Ocean theme for toddlers, preschoolers, and school aged kids.

EXTENSIONS:

-Talk about texture and how the clay is 3D.

-Practice one-to-one correspondence by creating x amount of each of the animals in the book and then counting them.

-Use the fingerplays in the back of the book as you are telling the story.

-Have your little ones use their clay art creatures to retell the story.

Ocean Animal Clay Art to go with Over In the Ocean In A Coral Reef is great for an Ocean theme for toddlers, preschoolers, and school aged kids.

It was so fun to work with a new art medium and Little Miss loved helping me make some of the animals from the story. It helped the story come to life for her as well.

Ocean Animal Clay Art to go with Over In the Ocean In A Coral Reef is great for an Ocean theme for toddlers, preschoolers, and school aged kids.

More Ocean Themed Arts and Crafts for Kids

Under Sea Painting

DIY Mermaid Tiara

Torn Paper Sea Horse

Crazy Sea Monsters

Coral Reef Salt Painting

DIY Sea Turtle Stamps

Ocean Animal Canvas


TPT profile pictureHeidi is an elementary teacher turned stay-at-home mama of two.

She is the author of Mac-n-Taters, a blog highlighting our play based crafts and activities through the baby, toddler, preschool, and eventual school aged years.

Themes are her jam so you will find lots of thematic play based activities as well.

Heidi is a picture taking obsessed, Pinterest obsessed, book hoarder who loves her little family!!!

You can find more play based activities on FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM, & PINTEREST.


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Ocean Animal Clay Art to go with Over In the Ocean In A Coral Reef is great for an Ocean theme for toddlers, preschoolers, and school aged kids.

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Ocean Animal Clay Art to go with Over In the Ocean In A Coral Reef is great for an Ocean theme for toddlers, preschoolers, and school aged kids.

Author
Cerys Parker

Cerys is a marine biologist, environmental educator, teacher, mum, and home educator from the UK. She loves getting creative, whether it is with simple and easy crafts and ideas, activities to make learning fun, or delicious recipes that you and your kids can cook together you'll find them all shared here on Rainy Day Mum.

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