we used this tutorial and made hand-shaped ring dishes and were really pleased with the end result. it's a super simple activity, and not all that time consuming (so just perfect for limited attention spans). it was also quite cost effective- a package of air dry clay is only a few dollars and would easily make several ring dishes. i believe i may have even seen similar clay in the craft section at the dollar store. (though don't hold me to that. i'm not a huge dollar store shopper, so i get instantly overwhelmed when i go in those places and lose all sense of brain function. ;) )
we tried a couple variations of this project- my favourite being the one shown here, plain white clay (not painted or decorated in any way, which could be a fun addition to this project). but we also made one using oven baked clay (fimo or the like) in various shades of greens and yellows and used a marbling technique shared over on a beautiful mess blog. the end result of this version was really cute and little bit more fun visually than the plane white clay.