Almost all children like to sculpt various figures and use all kinds of materials for this creative process - from sand on the playground to the culinary test. This activity is not only very exciting, but also useful. In the process of creating beautiful crafts from plasticine, the child is busy with an interesting thing that directly affects his mental development, emotional state and instills a sense of beauty.
How useful is modeling for preschool children?
Plasticine molding is given a lot of attention in kindergarten and elementary school. Children continually make beautiful plasticine crafts with their own hands, which are used for home-made theater or various competitions and exhibitions.
Modeling is useful for the mental development of the child. Plasticine perfectly develops fine motor skills of the baby’s hands, and this directly affects the proper development of speech, good memory, logical thinking and coordination of movements. Creating light and beautiful crafts from plasticine, the child learns perseverance and patience, develops abstract and logical thinking, creative abilities. Also, the baby comprehends the basics of independence.
When a child works with plastic mass with two hands (makes a ball or sausage from plasticine), both hemispheres of the brain are activated and interhemispheric connections are strengthened. This contributes to the development of attention, memory of all kinds and the ability to correlate images and facts.
In addition, exercises with plasticine positively affect the mental and emotional state of the baby, the central nervous system. This calm pastime, which helps to reduce excessive activity and normalize sleep, reduces irritability and irritability.
The youngest children learn modeling with colors and shapes, and also gives the experience of tactile perception of “soft-hard”, “dry-wet”, “warm-cold”. Working on volumetric figures, children analyze the features of objects, learn to see the details, they form knowledge about the properties of the world.
What crafts from plasticine can be done with your own hands?
From plasticine, you can create a variety of crafts and thematic works. It will be appropriate to use additional materials: acorns, pasta, cones, flowers and leaves, chestnuts. Most often, children do the following crafts:
- Animals. Such figures are quite simple in execution and look beautiful. You can make a spider, shark, squirrel, kitty or dog, giraffe, lion, bunny, octopus, turtle, caterpillar and any other animals.
- Flowers With the help of plastic mass it is easy to create cute jewelry and compositions. Preschool children can make a tulip or chamomile, while older children can already form a beautiful rose.
- Toys To make an article that you can play with later is even more interesting. Girls are suitable for dolls, mermaids and angels, boys can dazzle a car, plane or tank.
- Vegetables and fruits. Such light and beautiful crafts made of plasticine are even the smallest. Kids can make an apple or watermelon, lemon slice, grapes, strawberries and raspberries.
- Heroes of your favorite cartoons and fairy tales. It is enough just to mold fixatives, smurfs, Masha and the bear, Cheburashka, the heroes of the Minecraft game or the birds from the Engry Birds from plasticine.
Plasticine craft for the little ones
You can start the smallest children with plasticine (or better with modeling dough, edible plasticine or modeling mass) as early as a year and a half. First, let the baby remember in his hand a small piece of plastic mass. You can trust him to cover a plasticine picture or a plastic jar.
When the child gets a little used to working with this material, you can start creating the first simple crafts: try making a snake by simply rolling up a sausage from plasticine of any color, or a caterpillar. For the caterpillar, you need to fashion several plasticine balls of approximately the same size and connect them together, and then add eyes and antennae.
Step-by-step master class crafts for children 2-3 years old
Older children can deal with more complex crafts. For example, it’s not difficult to make a chicken with your own hands, and in any color: yellow, red, green, white. For eggs it is better to choose brown or white. Additionally, you can build a perch. For eyes, it is recommended to use black beads.
The chicken can be like a real one, or any fairy-tale hero with a bright plumage.
First you need to fashion the body and head-ball, connect both parts. Then add the crest and beak. Then you need to fashion beautiful wings from green plasticine and also attach them to the body of the bird. The perch stand can be executed in brown or green. A beautiful piece of plasticine, performed by a child of 2-3 years old (of course, not without the help of adults), is ready.
What to mold from plasticine with a child 3-4 years old?
Children love to watch colorful fish, so why not build your own aquarium? How to make a beautiful craft from plasticine? To create an aquarium fish, or rather several, you will need plasticine of different colors, a board and a knife for plasticine, as well as additional decorative elements (beads, beads).
You can make fish of various shapes and sizes. To the fashioned body (oval, round or triangular), add fins and tail, attach eyes and decorate the figure with different sparkles, sequins, beads or other elements. From several different fish you can create a whole thematic picture.
We sculpt a tiger cub with children 5-6 years old
It is interesting to make beautiful crafts from plasticine not only for kids, but also for school-age children. Moreover, the complexity of the products increases. Very beautiful crafts made of plasticine - a tiger cub - can be independently made by preschoolers and first-graders.
To create a tiger cub that is walking in the desert or lying on a platform in a circus, you will need orange, white and black plasticine, a stationery knife, beads or small black buttons for the eyes.
First you need to make an oval from orange plasticine, which will be the body of a tiger cub, and then proceed to create paws and a tail. To make the paws look realistic, claws are made on them with a special knife for plasticine.
Next, you need to make the head of the tiger cub and attach to it all the necessary elements, namely the eyes, ears, mouth. The inner side of the ears is best made of white plasticine, like the mouth of a tiger cub - so it will look like a real one.
Now you should paint the cub in a natural color. To do this, roll sausages of different lengths and widths from black plasticine, which draw dark stripes on the tiger's body and tail. You can make eyebrows or mustaches with the same elements. The figurine is ready.
Step-by-step creation of an elephant - crafts for children 6-7 years old
To create an elephant you will need: gray and pink plasticine, buttons or beads for the eyes, a tablet for working with the material. First you need to roll five balls of gray plasticine - one, more for the body and four smaller ones for the elephant's legs.
On the forefoot, for greater realism, cuts can be made. Feet are also well decorated with white circles - nails.
Next, you need to mold the head of an elephant. On the trunk, it is necessary to make notches, indicating the folds. To create the ears, gray and pink plasticine, rolled out into a flat cake, is used. Next, you need to connect all the details of the figure.
After the base is ready, you can start decorating. It is necessary to roll up tusks, tail, add eyes and eyebrows. You can do elephant bangs.
Cardboard application for primary school children
The most beautiful crafts made of plasticine can be done on the principle of applications. For example, to make a picture of "Cosmos", depicting flat planets, flying saucers and satellites, distant stars and comets on it. All elements must be attached to the black cardboard in random order. You can even add aliens.
Plasticine and sunflower hedgehog for kindergarten competition
A hedgehog is a beautiful plasticine craft for children, which can always be presented at an exhibition or competition. First you need to draw or print a prickly character on white or color cardboard, and then fill the needles with seeds glued to plasticine or glue. It is important to ensure that all seeds are directed in one direction - it will look neat and beautiful. Mushrooms, apples, leaves or mountain ash can be glued to the back of the hedgehog. A beautiful craft made of plasticine is very realistic and voluminous.
Making a Christmas tree from plasticine
Plasticine Christmas tree is a craft for children who already know how to work with scissors. First you need to roll a ball from green plasticine mass, then make a cone base out of it. For convenience, it is better to fix the workpiece on a wooden skewer. Next, you need to make small cuts with scissors, forming needles. It is recommended to decorate the finished green beauty with small plasticine balls, beads and beads. It turns out really a very beautiful craft, which will become a real decoration of the interior on the eve of the New Year holidays.