A few months ago, I decided to make a Conducting Elephant. On white poster board, my oldest daughter drew a cute elephant for me. I colored it & cut out a circular hole in place of the elephant's trunk.
I found a large piece of cardboard. I cut it slightly larger around than the poster board. I painted the outer edges green and about an inch wide. I painted the "trunk" edge pink. This trunk hole is slightly SMALLER than the elephant's actual trunk circle. It helps keep the abused look to a minimum. I found 6 used canning jar lids & glued them to the cardboard.
I placed magnets on the back of the elephant poster board, lining them up with the jar lids. I chose to take the time for this so that I can make other posters later & just be able to switch them as needed.
Lastly, I made a handle out of heavy cardboard & glued it onto the back of the cardboard. I used 527 Glue.
And there you have it: Conducting Elephant!
I have multiple old long socks for the children to choose from. They place the sock on their conducting arm & use it as the elephant's trunk to help lead the music. I use this prop only for the Jr. Primary. The Sr. are just way too cool for it. I sometimes need to help the kids hold up the elephant. It is a bit heavy. But they love it & sing beautifully!
If this looks familiar it's because I had this idea posted on Sugardoodle http://www.sugardoodle.net/joomla/ just a couple of months ago. Great website!
I am a completely random primary chorister who found your blog via google.... And THANK YOU!!!!! I have church in an hour and I'm frantically trying to figure out how to do this elephant posterboard! I appreciate your tips!
ReplyDeleteWahoo! Hopefully you simplified it for church today:) I tend to make things harder than they really need to be. This is a great help to pull out to practice the "cutting off" signal when preparing for those special performances, too. I'll be pulling it out again in the next couple of weeks to prepare for Mom's Day songs:)
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