How to make clay beaded necklaces with toddlers and preschoolers: These clay beaded necklaces are created truly by the kids themselves! It’s a fun process art activity with a great product for caregivers!
*We use affiliate links and may earn commission from purchases made through those links. All opinions are our own.
*Rockabye Butterfly gave us the idea for these clay necklaces. Thank you! We added the Invisible Lizard aspect.
How to: The Artwork
Supplies:
- Skewers
- Crayola Air Dry Clay
- Colorations Simply Washable Tempera Paint
- Colorations Yarn Laces
- Paintbrushes
Directions:
First, we made our beads by forming the clay into the shapes we wanted our beads to be. After that, we slid the clay pieces onto the skewers to put holes through them. We then painted the beads while they were still on the skewers. When they dried, we strung the beads onto the yarn shoelaces, tied them, and showed off our new clay beaded necklaces!
How To: The Program
My Young Artists class allows 2-5 year olds to explore art and engage the senses to help them understand the world around them. We used a picture book to inspire us to create today. So fun! And go literacy! 🙂
Group Activity:
We explored unique paintbrushes for the first 15 minutes of our class. It was fun and free, and I highly recommend it! *The idea for these paintbrushes came from Babble Dabble Do. Here are the full instructions.
Group Story:
The kids followed with the book fairly well! It’s a great story,and it’s one that many kids haven’t heard before.
Individual Art:
Chameleons have a gift of being able to blend into their surroundings. They’re able to change colors! We cannot do that. But, we can wear a cool necklace that has lots of different colors on it! That’s kind of the same, right?
Making clay beaded necklaces is a process art activity, meaning it’s about the process – not the product. Let the kids put whatever shape clay beads on their necklace that they want. They don’t have to be circles. Let the kids paint the beads whatever colors they want. All one color? Great! Every color mixed together? Great! You can also use this as a project for older kids. They’ll be more careful with perfectly forming the beads and then perfectly decorating them. That’s great too!
We used Crayola Air Dry Clay and Colorations Simply Washable Tempera Paint. We also used skewers like these and these Colorations Yarn Laces (for easy bead-stringing).
Easy, unique, and fun!
Comment below with other ideas you have for incorporating books into art projects!
Looking for more process art activities based on picture books? Try Art Books With Craft Ideas for Kids!