OK, this li’l guy is kind of crazy-looking, no? It’s based on my son’s third-grade classroom drawing of the relationship between cups, pints, quarts, and gallons. (Photo of his drawing is at left.)

With this teaching tool, kids will proudly answer the question, “How many cups in a gallon?” faster than the average adult! I loved seeing how my son’s classmates all wanted to hold it and study it. (I’m all about hands-on learning.)

As with other amigurumi, use any yarn you like and adjust your hook size to make tight enough stitches so that the stuffing doesn’t show through them.

The dishcloth cotton yarn and acrylic fabric paint hold up well to classroom use. So would acrylic yarn. For this, I like the fabric paint instead of embroidery for durability. (See my blog post on this: http://crochetpatterncompanion.blogspot.com/2010/11/dimensional-fabric-paint-for-crochet.html )

Skill level: Easy/Intermediate because of unusual construction: you begin with a square worked flat in rows, then you build a 3-dimensional figure by working in the round. You use single crochet stitches with no increasing or decreasing. I wrote this pattern with a limited amount of abbreviations.