Ellie the Elephant

Today is National Elephant Appreciation Day!

Why not create your own elephant to help celebrate the day.

Today is also the perfect opportunity to learn more about elephants, so here are 15 facts to help get you started.

1. There are two types of elephants found in the world
2. Elephants are the largest living land animal
3. Elephants can’t jump
4. Elephants spend 16 hours per day eating
5. Elephants travel in a herd
6. Elephants can communicate with each other over far distances
7. Elephants can live to be 70 years old
8. Elephants can use their trunks to breathe underwater
9. Elephants have great memories
10. Female elephants are pregnant for 2 years
11. One adult elephant consumes 300 – 600 pounds of food per day
12. Along with their large food consumption, elephants drink 30-50 gallons of water per day
13. Elephants use mud as sunscreen
14. Elephants are afraid of bees
15. Humans are an elephant’s strongest predator

Materials:

Directions:

First you need to make your elephant card board pieces. Print out the Elephant tracers, cut them out and trace them onto a sturdy cardboard piece. The cardboard should be something thicker then a cereal box, a shoe box or a file folder type thickness should work well. Next cut out your pieces from the cardboard, don’t forget the slits for his legs and ears.

1. Paint one side grey, let dry
2. Turn over and paint the other side grey, also let dry.

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3. Add your eyes, mouth and any other details using your black paint, let dry then turn over and repeat on the other side.

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4. Once dry decorate your elephant with the glitter glue. Make sure to let you glitter glue fully dry before you decorate the other side or it might run. Repeat on the other side.

5. Once fully dry (it could take over night) push the legs into the leg slits on the body and then push the ears onto the head. ( I didn’t let mine fully dry so Ellie’s swirls ran a bit)

Make sure to introduce your elephant to your other toys as elephants like to make friends.