Air Dry Clay Idea: Step-by-step Tutorial on Making Clay Corn

When the kids are too noisy for you to work properly, let them play with air-dry clay. It’s a sensory game that not only calms them down, but also improves tactile cognitive skills. This blog will discuss the idea of air-drying clay and the process of making corn, let’s get started step by step!

Prepare materials

Come up with 3 colors in the air dry clay set: yellow, green/cyan and white. Find a plastic knife and that’s all we need.

Okay, let’s get started now.

Air Dry Clay Corn Idea Step by Step Tutorial

This is an easy DIY tutorial that beginners or children can learn and make. We’ll do it in 2 steps.

Step 1: Make the Body of Clay Corn

Take some yellow air-dry clay and knead it into droplets. You can guide children to imagine corn they see or simply place it in front of them. This will help children understand the shape and details of the corn.

Use a plastic knife to draw vertical and horizontal lines on the yellow clay, which will reflect the grains of the corn.

Okay, now that we have the body of the clay corn, it’s time to add some leaves to it.

Step 2: Make Clay Corn Leaves

We used yellow and a little bit of green clay to create the color of the leaves.

Divide the clay into two equal halves with a knife and roll them flat with your fingers. Pay attention to the shape of the corn leaves. They are round at one end and pointed at the other. Do not roll them into even thin slices.

Once you have three leaves, carefully cover them over the main body of the corn. Only cover half and do not wrap the entire corn. Use your fingers to slightly bend the tip of the blade to expose more of the corn kernels.

Take a little bit of green clay and shape a small cylinder. Glue it to the bottom of the corn. Use a knife to lightly score some marks on the leaves, just like the stripes on real corn leaves.

At this point, we have completed making clay corn. Believe me, the children will happily hold up their works for you to watch at this time! What an exciting moment!

Precautions

1. Sometimes, the prepared air-dried clay corn looks delicious, but it is not edible. Adults should remind children when they are playing. Of course, it’s best to keep pets away from air-drying clay.
2. Air-drying clay can be air-dried anywhere, you don’t need to put it in the oven or microwave. This is dangerous because the high temperatures can cause burns or cause the clay to produce toxic gases.
3. During the production process, the air-drying clay may dry out. You can get a small watering bottle for the kids and spray a little water on the clay when it dries out to revive it.

Write At the End

Due to the properties of air-drying clay, the surface of kids clay corn will dry within 1 hour. Please place these corns in a ventilated area, which will speed up their hardening.

And, air-drying clay is light and will become even lighter after drying. So, the place where air-drying clay is placed should avoid strong winds, otherwise it will be blown away.

Finally, remember to seal any unused air-dry clay to prevent it from slowly drying and hardening in the air.

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