Clay in the Heat of the Day

It has been 100 degrees or over for weeks now, 21 days actually. We go to the pool or spray ground about two times a week, but only in the morning then we come home in time for lunch and nap. But after nap time is the hottest time of the day and we really cannot go outside to do anything. This is sad because my kids love to play outside in the sandbox and in the mud digging for worms or making mud pies. I don't want the kids to be glued to the t.v. so I've been trying to treat it like the ice days we had and come up with fun things we can do inside. 

On this day we played with and created things out of clay. My kids love Playdough, but they create things with it and then leave it out to dry and then it crumbles and you can't use it anymore so the next natural step for us was clay. We used the Air Dry Clay. 

We used our cookie cutters that I used to have in my classroom for Playdough. I got out the alphabet cutters and some of the kids favorite shapes and we went to town on the hardwood floor. I had to use a spatula to get them off though. The floor was pretty messy when we were done, but nothing a little vinegar and water couldn't fix. 

Rhett smashed all of his shapes together and Kellyn put her new favorite letter, X, on a heart. Side note: her favorite letter before this was P because of the color Pink. 

We laid them outside in the burning heat to bake for 1 day then painted them. 

Here is what they have painted so far.

On our next hot afternoon we plan to make ocean animals and sea creatures out of clay in preparation for the new Sea Life Aquarium in Grapevine!