I was just wondering if any of you super arty or very experienced carers out there have any art ideas for jungle animals! Just been given the fantastic task of decorating a jungle bungle with under 5's art work. While the older children can paint fab jungle animal pictures I need ideas for the younger artists.... Any ideas would be much appreciated, Many thanks in advance Sarah xx

What we do a lot is cover a black refuse sack in pva glue and get the children to cover it in strips of tissue paper overlapping the pieces- oranges, yellows and greens work well. Make sure the there aren't any visible black bits. Leave it to dry, it should be really easy to peel off and the side with the glue on will be really smooth and shiny. you can then cut it out into animal shapes or trees and it would make a fab display. it also looks goog when placed on the window and still lets the light through. You could make it into one big animal or give each child a small square of it each to do there own individual thing. This may be something you do already but if not I would really advise you to try it. My colleauge and I were shown how to do it on a course and it works really well. It takes a long time and we found it works best over a few days so the children can come back to it.

Have you tried Magic Maize? I didn't realise until we used it today and read the instructions (!) that you just add a tiny bit of water for them to stick to eachother. The kids made loads of funky anumals and added on googly eyes. I bought a few packets from the ELC but I think I have seen them at other places as well. The kids loved doing this and it was very easy for them to do and heklps develop fine motor skills.