'Elmer Day' at St Neots school

Crosshall Infant School in St Neots celebrated ‘Elmer day’ on May 28. 

The school asked the children to dress totally in one colour, to enable each year group to then reproduce the multi-coloured ‘Elmer the Elephant’ in the playground.  

Elmer written by David McKee, remains one of the most iconic and widely read children’s book series of all time, selling over 10 million copies worldwide.  

Teachers felt that this event is special more than ever at the moment as it has enabled discussion with the children around ‘What makes me unique?’, ‘Why is it good that we are not all the same?’ and ‘What makes other people unique?’ 

It encourages everyone to look at feelings and offers a really positive message “Celebrating everyone’s true colours with Elmer” 

The Elmer books are a celebration of reading, of accepting yourself and others, just like Elmer the Patchwork Elephant.  

The school also arranged a street party at lunchtime for each year group to eat their ‘Elmer lunch’ outside as an added celebration and ran a bookshop during the day for all children to visit to celebrate both Elmer and the joy of reading. 

The children spent all week preparing for this day with Elmer imbedded throughout elements of  the week’s curriculum, for example, following an Elmer themed maths trail, creating invitations to the street party in English and handwriting and going on an Elmer colour walk in science, in an attempt to get children to step back and take in the world around them, just like Elmer does in ‘Elmer’s Walk’.