E is for Elmer elephant ears

These we initially going to just be elephant ears, until my son had the bright idea of making them colourful and then they became Elmer ears.       

You will need

• Sheets of newspaper or butchers paper or any paper that is about A3 size
• Paints of various colours
• Stapler
• Sticky tape
• Scissors
• Texta or pencil to draw the ear shape

Method

Spread out a sheet of newspaper and using four different colours paint rough squares/rectangles of colour onto it.

Repeat this a second time, you can use the same pattern of colours or different ones. My sons preference was to use handprints  to paint the paper! Leave both sheets to dry. Once they have dried fold the paper in half widthwise, I just used the original fold in the newspaper, and using the texta or pencil draw an approximate elephant ear shape. Make the folded edge the side of the ear that goes against the side of the head.

Cut out the ear then staple around the edge but leave a small gap at the top, and you don’t need to staple along the fold. Scrunch up newspaper and stuff the ear, then staple the hole shut and check around the ear to see if a few more staples are needed now that the ear is stuffed. Repeat this process for the other ear.

Once you have the two ears, make a headband from another piece of paper. We took a sheet of newspaper and folded it repeatedly lengthwise until it was about an inch wide.  Measure it around the childs head and use some sticky tape to make a headband the right size. Sticky tape works best here as it doesn’t rub against the children’s heads like staples can do.

Staple the folded edge on the now stuffed ears onto the headband. You will need a few staples and it might be best to cover them in sticky tape to avoid them scratching the children’s heads.

Try them on! They might be popular with other members of the family too!!

Tips/notes/other ideas

We added some white paint to the colours to make them thicker so you can’t see as much of the print through it. We just chose to make four squares of colour on each ear, you could make any sort of design. Making these from thicker paper would make them last longer, they were popular with all the children and adults too!