Elephant Craft and Play

My very favourite craft and play ideas are the ones that come from Pebble. I love seeing her enthusiasm and creativity as she works through an idea. Just recently (actually, every day!) she asked to make something – and said that she needed boxes. When she saw the boxes she picked up an old ice cream container and said “I think this is a good hat!”. She looked through the other boxes and decided that the long skinny plastic wrap box was perfect for an elephant trunk. “We can make an elephant hat!”. So we did.

She helped me to stick the trunk to the elephant ‘hat’. “What else do elephants need?”, I asked? She thought for a moment, then said “EARS!”. I cut out some ear shapes from a cereal box and she showed me where to stick them on. She now wanted eyes, and after some discussion about options she settled on drawing eyes with a sharpie. And there you have it. One elephant hat!

Tips for Making Your Own Elephant Hat

• try to find a box that fits your child’s head
• create a trunk using a long thin box, or an old stocking stuffed with newspaper
• use an old cereal box to cut out ear shapes
• bottle tops or jar lids make great eyes, or use a sharpie or marker

But now what? Well, you can pretend to be an elephant, of course! Elephants are very fun to pretend to be, with lots of stomping and swaying and swinging of trunks, not to mention the trumpeting noises. And there are lots of fun songs to sing about elephants. Here’s one of my childhood favourites, and one that Pebble enjoys now:

The next best thing to imagining that we were elephants and singing about elephants was… using the sticky tape. Pebble is currently OBSESSED with sticky tape and has just learnt how to get it from the tape dispenser herself. You can only imagine the amount of tape being used in this house right now. Scissors come a close second. Our elephant hat was customised with some scissor snips along the trunk and LOTS of sticky tape all over it’s head.

You can also try out this fun ‘Elephants Balancing‘ craft idea from Learn with Play at Home.

 

Have any wild animals emerged from the recycling box at your place? 

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