Everyone loves Elmer, right? What's not to love? He's cute, multi-coloured,
friendly and even teaches children to be happy being themselves, even if that
means being a bit different.
So when we started Toddler Book Club he was an obvious choice for the first
book :)
But we love him so much we decided to do a whole week of Elmer-based
activities... And here they are, all 7 activities :)
******
Face painting
I saw this idea on
Meri Cherry's blog and D loved it! It must be the most
simple face-painting to do but still looks super cute and definitely got us all
in the "Elmer" mood. D actually ended up asking for his face to be
painted on several occasions during the week and even got upset when he realised
that his usually-messy-spaghetti-bolognese-eating was going to mean I'd end up
wiping some of Elmer off and refused to eat it!
Rainbow platter
I wanted to include one Elmer-related snack and this one was so popular that
I'm definitely going to repeat it/variations of it. Although not as Elmer-like
as some of the other activities, it is multi-coloured like him and that's the
connection ;)
This was great to do with a toddler - D helped with the cutting/chopping and
then we talked about each colour as he laid them all on the platter. It was
also great for talking about prepositions "behind" "on top
of" "next to" and of course for singing the rainbow song (which
he learnt in nursery last month). D was so proud to have helped with the
preparation and I think felt very grown-up being allowed to help himself from
the large selection. Over the course of the day he slowly ate nearly everything
(he had some help from another toddler friend) - the only things that got left
were some orange pepper slices and cucumber. Not bad going :)
I loved how quick and easy this was to throw together (less than 5 minutes) and
that D could then help himself when hungry. Usually he regularly asks for
snacks and would turn his nose up if I tried to give him some tomatoes! But
this worked a treat - next time I'm going to add in some cooked broccoli and a
few other vegetables that he isn't usually so keen on...
Paint-your-own Elmer
This was done as part of
Toddler Book Club (read more about it here) and nicely illustrated that even
very simple things can be fun.
Milk-paint Elmer toast
We
painted toast before for Valentine's Day and this was an obvious
Elmer-related thing to do with all his different colours. Although I only made
6 colours (and the orange one looked a more
dubious brown...). But anyway, D had fun painting and the toast was delicious
:)
Milk carton elephant
How cute are these?!
I'd never thought to do anything with all our used milk cartons before - crazy
when we seem to get through 50 gallons a week! - so this was the perfect craft
as they make brilliant elephants.
We collected a few different sizes and did a "base coat" in the
primary colours. Next I gave D some coloured paper squares, some sticky felt
and a pritt stick. He loved choosing which colour to use next and gluing is
always a favourite activity! He may not have quite got the patchwork effect
spot on but I think they look great and we're all done by him :)
This is a great activity to do after your milk paint toast obviously ;)
Plate painting
This was the one activity that required a bit more planning and more adult
input. But D still loved doing this and I think the end result is great :)
First I got a plain white plate (thanks Ikea!) and drew an outline of Elmer in
pencil. I also drew a very rough patchwork of squares, just to help remind D
about choosing different colours. There's no problem doing as much drawing in
pencil as you like because as soon as you put it in the dishwasher all the
pencil marks will disappear. Then I drew around the outline with a dark blue
ceramic pen (you need to use the right pens or your drawing won't 'set'
properly).
Next D coloured Elmer in. I tried to give D as much freedom as possible (after
all the whole point of the activity is for him to have fun, whilst learning a
new skill, talking about colours and practising his fine motor skills) and you
can see the patchwork squares are definitely toddler-work rather than by a
perfectionist! But when he went over the outline by mistake, or did a massively
over-enthusiastic scribble (happened surprisingly rarely!) then I did remove
the paint (very easy to do when still wet).
We had a pack of 5 ceramic paints from Tiger and we did a different colour each
day - this was a very easy way to do it as then each colour had dried from the
day before so he couldn't smudge them or mix them together and make Elmer all
brown!
There were a few little bits left uncoloured at the end which I coloured in
with our oil-based sharpies (the pink and light purple bits) and I went over
any bits of the outline that had been coloured in. Then I baked it in the oven
(90 mins at 160 deg C) and this was the result:
I love it! And more importantly so does D :) don't forget to write your child's
name and the date on it if you make one - I wrote it on the back.
******
So there you go, 7 activities around Elmer. You could do one a day for a week
or have a crazy elephant day and do them all at once! I'd love to hear if you
do any of them, or if you have any other Elmer-themed things we could try :)
