How can I make a good clay for a school project?

What kind of clay should I use for this school project?

• tl;dr: I need clay that is more sophisticated than play-doh and not as "professional" as actual clay-- and preferably pre-coloured. For my Spanish class field trip, we're gonna see a Spanish opera/ballet. And for every field trip, there has to be a follow-up project, so we're going to make our own "Alebrijes", which is like a little sculpture of an animal that should be kind of crazy and weird. Anyways... what should I make it out of? We're going to be competing them within the school, so I'd rather not use play-doh, which will crack and not look very good. However, I don't know if I want to go out and buy actual clay, because it's just going to be a small sculpture for, well, an 8th grade assignment. And it'd be really awesome if it was pre-coloured. Sorry to be picky.

• Answer:

  the easiest would be air-dry clay. If you want something a bit more sturdy you can use polymer clay. This has to be baked in a normal oven in order to get hard. It does come in different colors though, but you could also paint it afterwards. The airdry clay you would have to paint.