Would it be bad parenting if I encourage my kids to play with soil?
Tim… are you enjoying? Yes!!!!
Keeping watching and you’ll know what myself and my kids are up to in this video!
We geared up with a few tools
And headed out to dig the ground
Come on! come on! come on!
You can see we carried a bucket , a pick axe and a trowel
We loaded all these high-tech equipment on the scooter
and set out for our ride
so here is what the plan is..
We are going to dig up some soil, or dirt”…like Americans call it.
We are hoping to find some clay in it and if we do so…
we will bring it back home and process it to make pottery clay
Even if I were to dig a 100 feet in my yard
i am not going to find clay because it is a charconite mountain
But the good news is …wherever there is mountain there is possibility of finding a water body nearby
and we found a river…which is now turning into a sewage…
Here there is a possibility of finding clay
This is a quick pinch test.
Initially it was bit disappointing
The dig was full of sand possibly river sand but soon we hit the jack pot .
Here, we have the clay we wanted but it has a lot of organic materials in it.
But anyways we are going to purify
so let us scoop a liitle bit and take it home
We filled the bucket only as much as we could carry and that was only half a bucket.
I would have crossed this place a thousand times before, this river, but I never had an opportunity to come down here.
When I did this today, I feels so different
You can listen to the sounds of all these boys shouting here.
They are actually taking a dip in the water that is not so clear… its so murky.
We have got a bucket full of clay , we are going to take it home and proceed with next part of our video
Even half a bucket of soil feels a bit heavy when we have to carry it a long way
We are getting ready for the next process which is a lot messier than you think
So its wise to do this outside.
Tim pass me the sieve!!!
We have got some sieve here and this would be used to
separate the organic material from the soil once it is mixed in water.
The way clay can be separated from soil is ,
When you mix the soil in water , the heavier particles settle down to the bottom
and the clay particles will be suspended in water.
We are going to take all the soil and dunk it in the water
Once the water evaporates we will find clay on the top layer
You can see that the organic materials are already floating on top
Now thats how you get your hands dirty!
There is an abundance of grass and other organic stuff which bunch up
and can be scooped out easily
Next we pass this mixture through a large sieve
This is first stage of filtration where we are trying to remove
mainly the organic materials in it.
The heavier stuff like stones and sand have already sunk to the bottom.
Continually shaking the sieve helps the mixture get through faster
The first layer of filtration is completed and we move on to even smaller sieve
It might seem a bit boring to watch this on the video,
but in reality it is not so
I must admit it’s a slow process..but I am sure you will enjoy it
I placed this tub of clay water on a stool
and covered it with a mosquito mesh
We don’t want critters breeding in there
Next morning I opened up the mesh
and I saw that the clay had settled down
Now the water has to evaporate.
So I started removing as much as clear water, from the top
without disturbing the clay that has settled down
After sometime, I realised it would better to siphon it out
So I tacked a clear water tube
and siphoned the water out using a syringe.
This is the beginning of monsoon and I don’t think the clay is going to dry soon enough for what I need it.
So I am going to cheat a bit and speed up the process.
I stacked a lot of news papers.
A card board frame with an open base was covered using a T shirt.
Then the sedimented clay was poured into this improvised container.
The idea is, the T shirt is porous enough to pass the water and not the clay.
And all that excess water will be absorbed by the papers lying underneath.
The sun is about to set and I am going to leave this as it is overnight.
Next day morning when I tested it
the consistency was almost like that of an ice- cream.
So I coverd it again and left it dry another day.
So after 2 days,
, I think its got the consistency that I can work with .
So it is time to take it inside
Plus I don’t want these cats to run over it all the time.
Once I got it inside , I clumped both the batches together
and then it was let to dry 4 to 5 days
Now this is the clay that we have made in this video
and its wrapped in plastic sheet to retain the moisture inside
So that its ply able when we need to work with it
Now what we are going to do is
we are going to make some lamps using this clay .
Are you ready boys?
One of the reasons why I prefer natural clay over play- dough
is because it retains its shape once dry
You can put this in a kiln and fire it up or you can keep it the way it is
And to make the lamps
we will use these metal lamps as reference for the shape
Lets get started
To start with, I showed them a reference and the boys were quick to grasp it.
As expected
, they had their own versions and creativity included.
To sum up, we went hunting for clay
refined it, and are now now making toys out of it
I think it is a positive start.
On a hind thought, I am sure they are not going to put this in their mouth
for they know where this clay has come from.
So should kids be allowed to play with soil?
Let me know what you think
Here is a toy kitchen set made out of clay
They don’t make this anymore so we made our own version.
Hope you liked this cute journey and this video.
Please do leave your feedback in the comments below
Thanks as always. Until next time bye.