So what was your favorite art project as a kid? Was it painting with tempera paints or drawing with nice sharp pencils or coloring with crayons? Maybe you really enjoyed pasting cut-up magazine photos into creative collages. Or perhaps crafty projects like those metal potholder looms with their multicolored cotton loops were more your thing. For the students in the K-5 school where I volunteer, clay jazzes them the most. Even our most challenging students stay focused when they're working with clay. It doesn't seem to matter whether they're molding or glazing, clay days are fun for everyone.

Don't you think we grownups would do well to bring out the clay on those days when our boss gets on our case or the computer crashes and burns? Wouldn't we need fewer drinks and/or pills if we could pound on a wad of clay and create some masterpiece when things go bad? Hey, there's nothing like the earth energy of clay to ground the storm. Try it sometime; you might be surprised at how good it feels.