Playdough Stamps and Ocean Critters! (Art + Books Series)

Once in a while we get around to doing art projects. Since we like picture books, these art projects occasionally pair up with picture books. 

For this project, we used playdough to create stamps. 

Since the playdough gets messy, this might be a good project for using up older tubs of playdough, especially ones that are mixed up colors or starting to dry out.

Book:

Star of the Sea: A Day in the Life of a Starfish (affiliate link), by Janet Halfmann, illustrated by Joan Paley.

In this story, the starfish loses one of its rays to a seagull, but that's not a big deal for a sea star, because they can recover and regrow their missing rays. They're also a relatively simple shape for kids to make--especially if you use the idea of radial symmetry to stamp the sea star (see more about that below).

Other Supplies: 

Old playdough scraps, finger paints, and paper.

(You can use newer tubs of playdough, but this project is a great way to use up those messy playdough scraps you've been thinking about throwing out. It won't matter if the colors are all mixed up, because you'll be using the playdough for painting!)

When I started working on this project, I tried creating some actual stamps. Since I was planning an ocean-theme, I started with starfish and octopus shapes. Those seemed like nice, simple shapes that might work well as stamps.

As you can see, though, from this first picture, playdough stamps don't really work for shapes. The surface is irregular, so it's hard for kids to get the whole shape to show up on the paper.

However, playdough is fantastic when it comes to creating semi-abstract textures!

So, instead of creating an octopus, focus on breaking the playdough up into a variety of round, flat, or tube shapes and use those like a paint brush to create different textures.

Thin or tube shaped pieces can paint long blades of undersea grass.

Roundish blobs can build a great rock texture. Use heavier paint in some areas to show the darker textures of shadows.

Radial symmetry

This might seem like a big concept for kids to understand, but it's something that you can show them using your playdough stamps. 

Start by explaining that people have two arms, two legs, two eyes--one on each side of our body. Many other animals are the same, but sea stars have arms in a circle instead. They have radial symmetry, where their body parts spread out like the rays of a sun, instead of growing side-by-side.

Sea stars also have a very simple body shape--each arm is a long, roundish triangle that's repeated around the circle.

You can show your students how to make this shape for your students by creating a triangle out of playdough, then using it to stamp the same shape five times in a circle, creating the five rays of a sea star. 

For this picture, we started with the red starfish, then filled in the blue and brown rock shapes around it. I added the yellow starfish over the rocks, just to see what that looked like.

Now it's your turn!

See what shapes and textures you can come up with! When we did this activity, my kids were younger, so we kept the stamps fairly simple, but older kids experiment with other shapes or use tools to add more details and textures to the stamps.

I'd love to see what you create, if you want to tag me on Instagram at @kidlitandsteam.