Elmer Collages

Elmer, by David McKee is quite popular with my kindergarten students! After reading the story, we create our own parade of patterned elephants. This is a great opportunity to talk about using shapes to draw (we start with a circle or oval and add legs, trunk, tail, etc.), as well as discussing patterns and repetition. Students also get excellent practice with fine motor skills as they create their detailed patterns and cut, paste and tear to create their collage. I talk about foreground and background, as well, as students cut out their colorful elephant and glue him/her to a construction paper background.

For the background:

• 9x12 blue construction paper (though McKee's scenes have pink, purple and even orange skies!)
• 6x12 green construction paper (students tear across the stop horizontally to create the illusion of hills/grass/etc.)