An elephant load of mess...

This is another one of our "Week of Elmer" activities but this one was so fun (and messy!) that I thought it needed a post of it's own :)

This was a variation on the ball yoghurt painting Iz did a few weeks ago. I wanted to do an activity linked to Toddler Book Club that was suitable for babies to join in with and came up with this...

Giant Elmer Yoghurt painting 

Awesome right?! So if you want to try this, here is what we used:

- tuff spot/tray (LOVE this for indoor messy play)

- large plain paper

- yoghurt paint (see here how to make it)

- paintbrush (optional)

- a good cleanup plan...

Step 1:

Make your yoghurt paints. D loved helping with the mixing and seeing the colours develop. We stuck with red, yellow, green and blue. I know Elmer has a lot more colours but I thought 4 was probably enough. And when I later saw how much mess 4 made I was even more glad I hadn't laid out a whole rainbow ;) we also made the paints a few hours in advance and just put the bowls back in the fridge - so they were ready exactly when we wanted them.

Taste testing...

Step 2:

Get the largest piece of white paper you can find and draw a big Elmer on it. My art skills are pretty rudimentary but luckily Elmer is quite easy to draw! Then tape it to your tuff spot with masking tape.

In the end I got them to share an elephant rather than having one each

Step 3:

Assemble children on tuff spot. The important bit here is not to even blink... I turned around for about 3 seconds to get my camera and when I looked back Iz had already dived straight in and was covered in yoghurt!

Still relatively clean...

This was after about 30 seconds!

Step 4:

Sit back, relax and embrace the mess...

Arghhhh she got yoghurt on my leg!!

Love his dedication to the painting even when she had the pot!

Face of innocence...

Yep a ball got involved again :)

Iz has a snack, D stays focused on the task at hand...

D really enjoyed the painting and this activity kept his attention much longer than other ones have. He made sure he used every colour and was careful to make sure he painted all of Elmer. I was impressed at his dedication - even as Izzy was tearing at the paper, he still carried on painting!

He's not looking too impressed by her destructive streak here...

The colours didn't translate particularly well on the paper (they'd probably look brighter with more food colouring) but D still enjoyed telling me which colour he was using/wanted and it didn't dampen his enjoyment.

Concentrating hard :)

Now I should point out that I LOVE messy play and don't mind my kids getting super messy. But even I was surprised at just how messy (and how fast!) Iz got. She loved it though and had so much fun, but this may not be the best activity if you are not a fan of mess...

Meeessssssssss

 

But so happy with it!

******

Have you ever done a giant yoghurt painting? Do you think you'll try one? I'd love to hear about it :)