How Is Clay Modeling Used in Waldorf Education?

In Waldorf schools, children usually model in beeswax first and move on to clay around grade 3 or 4, when they're about 9. Each child gets a handful of cool, damp clay and shapes it from one whole piece, starting with a sphere. In grade 4 that sphere becomes an animal from the main lesson, often one lying down, like a cow in the grass. Plants and human figures follow in the upper grades, and in grade 8 a head. At home, you need a bag of moist clay, a board and a damp cloth.

Beeswax first, then clay

If your child has done beeswax modeling, they know the routine. They hold a small piece in their hands until it softens, then shape it. Beeswax is small, clean and warm, and it needs a child's warmth before it will move.

Clay is the opposite. It's cool, heavy and wet, and your child works it with the whole hand, sometimes both arms. The Parenting Passageway, a Waldorf homeschool blog, suggests bringing in clay in "increasingly larger amounts" after age 9. Mountain Laurel Waldorf School introduces clay in grade 3, while the class hears the creation story, and its children model "simple, large archetypal forms (beginning with the sphere)."

So there's no single rule. The Waldorf Resources curriculum, written for Waldorf schools, lets class teachers use "clay, wax or plasticene" in grades 1 to 3 wherever it suits the main lesson. Most families find beeswax easier on the kitchen table in the early years, and move to clay when their child wants bigger forms.

Why clay around age 9?

Around 9, many children begin to feel separate from the world around them for the first time. Waldorf teachers call this the nine-year change. The same Waldorf Resources curriculum describes modeling at this age as a way to keep a "qualitative connection" with the world, "so that detachment does not turn into alienation."

Put more simply, a child who has just started to stand apart from things gets to put both hands into something and feel it change. The Parenting Passageway links the timing to children being "more grounded on the earth" after 9.

Grade 4: the animals

Grade 4 is when clay often comes into its own, because it's the year of the human and animal block. Children spend weeks watching and drawing the cow, the lion, the eagle or the mouse. Modeling lets them feel how each animal holds its body.

For grade 4, Waldorf Resources suggests:

• Simple shapes first: the sphere, the pyramid and the cube, developed "out of the hollow of the hand."
• Animals at rest, each developed from a sphere: a "sleeping cat," a "resting deer," a "reclining cow."

Notice that the animals are lying down. A curled cat is still mostly sphere, so a child can find it in the clay without pulling out four thin legs. Mountain Laurel describes grade 4 as a time to "explore the changing range of gestures in the animal world."

Many schools end the animal block with a project, and clay is one way to do it. Summerfield Waldorf School has grade 4 children make "a three dimensional artistic integration of a chosen animal" in clay or beeswax. Starpath's grade 4 Human and Animal block closes the same way, with a small animal project that can include a habitat scene. A clay animal on a board of moss and stones fits it well.

The grade 4 curriculum guide sets out the rest of the year. If you're still choosing materials, the best Waldorf homeschool curriculum for grade 4 compares what's out there.

How to model from one piece

A Waldorf Journey, a blog by a Waldorf class teacher, describes a grade 3 clay lesson that works just as well at home. A few habits from it:

1. One handful each. Give each child a lump that fits comfortably in their hands.
2. Only hands. "The only tools you may use are your hands." Not the table, not a pencil.
3. Call it a sphere. She says "sphere," not "ball," so no one is tempted to throw it.
4. Wet fingers, not wet clay. If the clay starts to dry, dip your fingers in water. Don't dip the clay.
5. Keep it whole. Children are "so much happier with their result" when they start with a whole piece and push and pull it into shape.

Her class went from sphere to egg to bird. For an egg, hold the sphere between thumb and first finger and gently draw out one end. For a bird, pinch a head from the narrow end and a tail from the wide end.

For a grade 4 cat, start the same way. Roll a sphere, press it gently into a low dome, then draw out a head at one side and let a tail wrap round the body. Go slowly and keep the form whole. It will look like a stone with a cat asleep inside it, which is just right.

Earthschooling sells a short video tutorial, taught by Brian Wolfe, on basic animal forms for the grade 4 Man and Animal block, if you'd like to watch someone's hands first.

Grades 5 to 8: plants, figures, crystals, heads

Clay carries on through the upper grades, and it follows the main lessons.

• Grade 5. Plant forms: buds and fruits, shaped by "feeling one's way into the plant's growth movements," as Waldorf Resources puts it. That fits the year's botany block. In handwork, Waldorf Resources adds thumb pots, or "thumb-work bowls."
• Grade 6. Mountains, minerals and crystal shapes, and groups of human figures. Mountain Laurel begins modeling "the metamorphosis of the Platonic solids," along with wrestlers, dancers and masks.
• Grade 7. Geometric solids, and human gestures like turning and stretching. Whidbey Island Waldorf School models "the human hand & foot in clay." Waldorf Resources adds coil-built pots in handwork.
• Grade 8. Dramatic gestures, like an embrace, sleep or flight. Whidbey Island sculpts "the human head in clay." At Da Vinci Waldorf School, grades 6 to 8 made half-size heads of themselves in terracotta.

Clay also turns up in other main lessons. Waldorfish lists the bones of a human leg, a Roman aqueduct and layers of sedimentary rock among the pieces middle-grade children may sculpt.

What clay to buy

A natural, moist, premixed clay from a pottery or art supplier is what most Waldorf classes use. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's art safety guide suggests premixed clay "to minimize exposure" to clay dust. For children's art materials in general, it suggests buying ones labelled "Conforms to ASTM D-4236" with no warnings on the label.

If you want to keep a piece and have no kiln, air-dry clay will harden on a shelf. Simply Waldorf's clay course works with natural clay or polymer clay. A few kilos is plenty to start, since most of what you model goes back in the bag.

Cleaning up and storing clay

Clay is messier than beeswax, but it's easy to clean up while it's still wet. Work on a board or an old oilcloth. Afterwards, scrape the scraps back into the bag and wipe the table with a damp cloth.

The CPSC's advice on dust is worth following at home. Don't sweep dried clay; use a wet mop or rags. Don't sand dry pieces. If a child wants to smooth a piece, do it while the clay is still damp.

To store it, Seattle Pottery Supply suggests sealing the clay tightly in plastic and keeping it in a plastic tub with a lid. Check it now and then. If it's started to dry, spray a little water inside the bag and close it up again. Many Waldorf classes don't keep their pieces at all. The clay goes back in the bin for next time, and that's part of the lesson.

A way to begin

Choose one afternoon this week. Cover the table with an oilcloth, set out a bowl of water and give your child a handful of clay. Model a sphere together, in silence, for five minutes. Then turn it into an egg, and the egg into a sleeping cat. Look at it together, then press it back into a lump and seal it in the bag for next week.