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Sometimes there are so many potential activities that relate to a certain theme or idea that it’s not realistic to take the time to do all of them. In fact, I think most often this is true. Since time is limited, it is just a reality that we probably won’t get to all the fun things that we could do. But I am not going to worry about that I am going to be okay with the things that we can do. Even though we didn’t get to all the things I had planned this week for E is for Elephant I am glad we were able to do as much as we did. The highlight of the week was a trip to the zoo to see the African elephants up close (our children love going to the zoo so they are happy to have any reason to visit again).
As for the basket and theme toys on display, this week included several plush elephants, a vintage Dumbo toy, wooden elephants I bought while I was in Ghana many years ago, an elephant from the Little People A to Z learning zoo, and an elephant flash card from this Eric Carle set. The “Horton” and “Lumpy” plush toys are some of Tootsie Pop and Kitty Cat’s favorites so they didn’t last more than 30 seconds on display.
We read a lot of elephant books this week and overall the children weren’t quite as excited about them as they were about the books from some of the other weeks but there were a few favorites in the bunch (favorites are starred).
Fiction:
- The Obvious Elephant by Bruce Robinson
- Looking After Little Ellie by Dosh & Mike Archer
- The Circus Baby by Maud & Miska Petersham
- Peanut by Linas Alsenas
- Horton Hears a Who! by Dr. Seuss
- Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss
- Elmer and the Lost Teddy by David McKee
- Ella the Elegant Elephant by Carmela & Steven D’Amico
- “Stand Back,” Said the Elephant, “I’m Going to Sneeze!” by Patricia Thomas
- Five Minutes’ Peace by Jill Murphy*
- I’ve Got an Elephant by Anne Ginkel*
- Uncle Elephant by Arnold Lobel
Non-Fiction:
- Elephants: A Book for Children by Steve Bloom* (this is a beautiful book)
- Tarra & Bella: The Elephant and Dog Who Became Best Friends by Carol Buckley*
- Elephants Can Paint Too by Katya Arnold
- Baby Elephants by Alice Twine
- African Elephants Up Close by Carmen Bredeson
I found these cute little elephant ceramic banks at the Dollar Tree and thought it would be a good project for this week to have the children paint them. The children were all very focused and worked hard during this project to make their banks just right. Even though the paint was pretty runny and difficult to work with all three children were extremely patient with it and in the end felt their banks turned out nicely (I personally think the end result was less than beautiful, not because of their work but because the paint was so bad, but I’m glad they had fun with it).
Snootz had a great idea to cut our sandwiches into the shape of the letter E. I love his creativity!
The children played Sequence for Kids with Daddy which was a perfect supplement for this week’s theme since the game is based on animals and includes Eddy the Elephant.
The children colored the E activity page from the All About Reading, Pre-Reading program and then I painted their fingertips with brown marker to make peanut shaped fingerprints.
Snootz finds Shel Silverstein’s poems really funny and I thought this particular poem was very fitting for this week so I read it aloud to the children. It’s called “Imagining” from the book Falling Up.
Also, the children listened to the song “Do you Know What Has a Trunk?” on the Fun Learning Songs CD. There was a lot of dancing taking place during this song but I didn’t capture it with any photos. Sometimes it’s better to just be in the moment rather than stopping to take a picture.
And as I mentioned, we took a family trip to the zoo. The weather has been beautiful here this past week so it was a perfect time to go. Our elephant friend posed nicely for us.
And that completes our week of E is for Elephant! This week we begin F is for Frog.
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