Our Alien Creations – From Playdough to Clay! 👽🎨

The Junior Infant classroom has been buzzing with imagination, creativity, and plenty of messy fun as we launched into an exciting new Art, STEM and Fine Motor Skills Unit: Alien Creations!

We began our unit by making our own playdough from scratch. The children measured, mixed, kneaded, and coloured the dough, working together and having great fun (and getting a little messy too!). This hands-on experience supported problem-solving, teamwork, and fine motor development — all while sparking lots of excitement.

Once our playdough was ready, it was time to design and build our very own aliens!
There were aliens with googly eyes, twisty tentacles, sparkly antennas, extra arms, and even miniature playdough alien pets. Each child’s alien was completely unique, showing amazing originality and imagination. Through sculpting, rolling, pinching, and shaping, the children strengthened their fine motor skills and expressive abilities.

But our Alien Unit doesn’t end there…

🗓 Next step: Creating aliens with clay!
Using everything we learned from working with playdough, we will now move on to a new challenge: designing and sculpting aliens using clay.
This will help us:
🖐 Develop stronger fine motor control
🎨 Learn about form, shape, and texture
🔎 Explore simple 3D design techniques
💡 Plan and adapt our ideas from one material to another

We will sketch our designs, experiment with different clay techniques like coiling, smoothing, and joining, and then bring our final aliens to life — this time as lasting clay sculptures.

This unit has been a wonderful mix of creativity, sensory exploration, skill-building, and imaginative play — and we’re excited to see where our aliens travel next! 🚀🌍👽