If you haven’t introduced your kids to the fun of playing with real clay, I encourage you to buy some at your local craft store. Don’t get the play clay or the colored clay strips, but the real gray clay potters use.
Take your kids outside and spread out a plastic tablecloth or something that can be easily wiped down. Place a bowl of water where your kids can periodically wet their hands to smooth their creation. Cut off a block of clay and encourage them to create a pot or dish.
As they work, share with your kids that in Bible times people couldn’t go to Target and buy dishes when they needed them. Everything was created by them from clay or by a local potter. They would have been very familiar with how a potter formed dishes and pots, as they probably had to go to a pottery studio more than once to commission or purchase pieces. The ideas the Bible shares about God as the potter and people as the items he creates from clay would have made perfect sense to them.
Unless your kids work with clay, they may never understand all of these verses on the level they were meant to be understood. Here are some of the lessons you can share with them as they work with their clay: