Read Eric Carle’s book Mister Seahorse to pupils. The youngest will enjoy studying and simply recreating the illustrations. Cut out sea-horse shapes from coloured tissue paper, exploiting its translucency by gluing different coloured layers using diluted PVA. Once dry, return to these pictures, overpainting and printing a repeating pattern on top, using potatoes or simple small shapes such as building bricks or leaves.

KS2

Read the opening lines of the article and ask pupils to draw what is being described and guess its identity, before showing them a picture of a sea horse. They can then invent their own bizarre combinations of sections of insects and animals.

KS3-4

Set a children’s book design project, modeled on Mister Seahorse. Include a caring dimension about the importance of families, as in the Eric Carle story, thus introducing a PSHE dimension. The graphics in their designs must also exploit overlaying illustrations, as used in Carle’s book, which features plastic sheets that partly conceal or disguise what is underneath.

Challenge the more able pupils to incorporate an additional pop-up dimension.

* Mister Seahorse www.eric-carle. com