Adding art activities to your homeschooling routine helps kids develop their creative side. Here are some tips about doing sculpture at home from homeschooling parent Jean Watson:

Modeling Dough

Homemade or purchased modeling dough is fun and relaxing. It can be pounded and pummeled, messed with and squashed. And it's good for releasing energy on a rainy day.

You can find modeling dough tools like rolling pins and dough cutters at toys stores, but it's fine to use ordinary cookie cutters and plastic utensils.

Modeling dough is also useful for imaginative play, such as "cooking" in your play house or making items to "sell" in your shop.

There are lots of different modeling dough recipes if you want to make your own. There are even no-cook instant playdough versions, if you want to let the kids help you mix it up.

Clay

Clay is entirely different from modeling dough. It is a serious artists' tool. It is not a good idea to use a lot of toys with clay. Children should learn to work it with their hands.

Clay can be used to achieve a lot of things that are impossible with modeling dough. For home use, there are air-drying clays that don't need to be fired in a clay oven.

Protect your work surface with an old heavy plastic or fabric tablecloth, and give each child a wet kitchen sponge to keep the clay wet. (Don't give them containers of water -- they will use too much.)

If your children are young, knead the clay to an easy working consistency yourself first. Older children can do it themselves.

Other Sculpting Materials

• Polymer Clay: Sold under brand names like Fimo and Sculpey, polymer clay is dense and easy to work with. It's best for tiny projects, because it is relatively expensive and because you bake it in your oven or toaster over to make it permanent. It is often used to make jewelry, buttons, beads, and other decorative items.
  
  

• Crayola Model Magic: Similar to modeling dough but less dense, Model Magic is great for permanent sculptures because it air dries in a few days. It's also good for large or small sculptures with lots of details. It comes in several colors which can be mixed together, and can also be colored when soft or after drying with water-based markers.
  
  
• Modeling beeswax: Popular with Waldorf educators, modeling beeswax smells good, is easy to work with, and comes in beautiful colors. It is very uplifting to feel the way it comes to life in the warmth of your hands. Save it for days when your child is sick or everybody needs cheering up with something extra-special.
  
  
• Modeling clay: Sometimes known by the brand name Plasticine, this type of clay is cheap and fun. Because it doesn't dry, kids like to use it to make stop-motion animation videos.
  
  
• Papier maché: Messy but useful for items like masks and landscape models, papier maché is better for older children's projects than as an everyday sculpture material. You can buy it premade, but it is easy to make your own.
  
  
• Assemblage: Collect any types of small objects and let your artists go to town. Outside in the garden, they can build fairy houses or small monuments with bits of stick and bark, sea shells, and stones. Kids old enough to use a glue gun can use it to create works out of items like bottle caps, marbles, and old toys.