Вчера мы лепили из глины, и у каждого получилась своя маленькая фигурка.

Лепили is the past tense plural of лепить, which means to sculpt, mold, or shape by hand, especially from a soft material like clay, dough, or snow.

So in this sentence, мы лепили means we were making/modeling something by hand.

This verb is very natural with глина (clay). You also hear it in phrases like:

• лепить из пластилина — to model with plasticine
• лепить снеговика — to make a snowman

Because the subject is мы (we), the past tense form is plural: лепили.

Лепили is imperfective, while слепили would be perfective.

The imperfective лепили focuses on the activity/process:
Yesterday we were modeling with clay / we did clay modeling.

The perfective слепили would focus more on the completed result:
We made / finished making something out of clay.

In this sentence, the speaker first describes the activity itself:

• Вчера мы лепили из глины — Yesterday we were modeling with clay

Then the second part gives the result:

• у каждого получилась своя маленькая фигурка — each person ended up with their own little figure

So the sentence nicely combines:

• process → лепили
• result → получилась

The preposition из usually takes the genitive case when it means out of / from a material.

So:

• глина — clay
• из глины — out of clay

This is a very common pattern in Russian:

• из дерева — out of wood
• из бумаги — out of paper
• из снега — out of snow

So лепили из глины literally means modeled out of clay.

У каждого literally means by each person or with each one, but in natural English here it means:

• each person
• everyone
• each of us

This is a very common Russian structure. У + genitive often expresses what someone has, gets, or what happens to someone in relation to possession or result.

Here:

• у каждого получилась...
  literally: for each person, there turned out to be...
• natural English: each person ended up with...

So Russian uses a structure that feels different from English, but it is very natural.

Because the grammatical subject is фигурка, and фигурка is:

• singular
• feminine

In Russian past tense, the verb agrees with the subject in gender and number:

• получился — masculine
• получилась — feminine
• получилось — neuter
• получились — plural

So:

• получилась фигурка — a figurine came out / turned out

Even though у каждого refers to many people, it is not the grammatical subject. The subject is своя маленькая фигурка, so the verb is feminine singular.

Not here. Although получить often means to receive, the verb получиться has another very common meaning:

• to turn out
• to come out successfully
• to end up being

In this sentence, получилась means something like:

• came out
• turned out
• was successfully made

So:

• у каждого получилась своя маленькая фигурка
  means
  each person ended up with their own little figurine
  or
  each person’s little figurine turned out successfully

This is a very common Russian use:

• У меня не получилось. — It didn’t work out for me / I couldn’t do it.
• Суп получился вкусный. — The soup turned out tasty.

Свой is a reflexive possessive pronoun meaning one’s own. Russian uses it when the possessor is the same person being talked about in that part of the sentence.

Here, у каждого means for each person, so своя фигурка means:

• their own figurine
• a figurine of their own

Russian strongly prefers свой in this kind of context.

Compare:

• У каждого получилась своя фигурка. — Each person made their own figurine.
• Using его/её here would sound less natural and could create ambiguity, as if it were someone else’s figurine.

Also, своя agrees with фигурка, which is feminine singular:

• свой — masculine
• своя — feminine
• своё — neuter
• свои — plural

Фигурка means little figure, figurine, or small shaped object. It is a diminutive form, which often makes the word sound smaller, cuter, or more informal than a more neutral word like фигура.

The adjective маленькая means small/little and agrees with фигурка in:

• gender: feminine
• number: singular
• case: nominative

So:

• маленькая фигурка — a little figurine

Both words are feminine singular nominative because they are the subject phrase of получилась.

Russian word order is flexible, but this version sounds natural because it presents the information in a smooth way:

• у каждого — for each person
• получилась — turned out / came out
• своя маленькая фигурка — their own little figurine

This structure emphasizes the idea that each person had a result.

Other word orders are possible, but they may shift emphasis:

• Своя маленькая фигурка получилась у каждого.
  More emphasis on the fact that everyone got one.
• У каждого своя маленькая фигурка получилась.
  Possible in conversation, but less neutral.

The original sentence is a very standard, natural order.

There is a comma because и joins two separate clauses, each with its own predicate:

1. Вчера мы лепили из глины
2. у каждого получилась своя маленькая фигурка

In Russian, when и connects two full clauses in a compound sentence, a comma is usually needed.

So the comma works much like in English:

• Yesterday we were modeling with clay, and each person ended up with their own little figurine.

Вчера simply means yesterday and sets the time in the past. It does not itself force a particular aspect, but it works well with both imperfective and perfective verbs depending on what you want to express.

Here it helps frame the whole event as something that happened yesterday:

• Вчера мы лепили... — yesterday we were doing clay modeling
• Вчера мы слепили... — yesterday we finished making something

So вчера gives the time, while the aspect choice still depends on whether the speaker wants to emphasize the process (лепили) or the completed act/result (слепили).

A very literal translation would be something like:

• Yesterday we modeled from clay, and for each person there turned out their own little figurine.

That is understandable, but not natural English.

A better natural translation would be:

• Yesterday we modeled with clay, and each of us ended up with our own little figurine.
• Yesterday we made things out of clay, and everyone came away with their own little figurine.
• Yesterday we did some clay modeling, and each person made their own little figurine.

So yes, this sentence usually needs to be translated naturally, not word-for-word, because Russian expresses possession and results differently from English.