Dustyfeet was desperate to do some fingerpainting but wanted to paint an elephant. So to continue the theme, I drew an elephant on a big sheet of paper and let her at it.
IMPORTANT: If you do this, use a permanent marker to draw the elephant. We did two. The first one I drew with a washable pen, the fingerpaints washed the pen away, and Dustyfeet was very upset because the elephant had gone!
When she had finished, we let the paint dry and then I cut out the elephant shape. The permanent marker soaks through the paper so you can see it from the back, which makes cutting easier. We pasted the elephant onto a clean sheet of paper. Dustyfeet is very proud of her beautiful elephant.
I like this so much I might even find a frame for it, and hang it on her wall.
With the leftover finger paints, Dustyfeet painted some paper plates. Let me reiterate what a useful resource paper plates are. You can do ANYTHING with a paper plate. They are much better for painting on than scrap paper, and cheaper than buying artist-quality paper all the time (we did use good paper for the elephant). Also, they are round, and have interesting ridged edges. Square and rectangular pictures are over-rated.
That evening when Dustyfeet had gone to bed, Sandydad cut out some little elephant shapes from the paper plates.
The next morning, I hid them all over the house, gave Dustyfeet a bucket to collect them in, and we went on an elephant hunt. She thought this was VERY funny.
