The Making of Elmer

First, we collected plastic 2 litre milk bottles and Mrs Bear cut them so that each milk bottle looked a little like an elephant with a trunk and four legs.  Some were big, some were small, some were fat and some were thin, depending on the make of the milk bottle itself.

We tore up newspaper into little pieces and glued them all over to make a bottom layer or undercoat (some people called it their underwear!). 

Watch our video:

While our Elmers were drying in the sun by the window, we drew and coloured our design, every single one was different!  Later on, we kept checking these designs to keep our colours on track.

Then we were reading to apply colour to the legs, using the same technique:

Next, we stood them up properly and coloured their backs and trunks.  

As you can imagine, this was a l-o-n-g, s-l-o-w process - and a very messy one too.  (Yikes! Look at the classroom!)

After that, it was time to colour the ears, making them symmetrical so that both ears matched.

We even did some Elmer Maths - watch our video (we had to have 7 takes to skip count in twos without any gaps or mistakes!)

Finally, it was time to add eyes and tails . . . and AT LAST, they were finished.