The resources we used this week were…
Songs:
'Dance with the Elephant' by Storybots
Videos:
ABCMouse.com 'The Letter E Song'
Storybots 'Everybody has an E'
Elephant YouTube Videos (We love this one of a baby elephant ribbon dancing, but there are tons on YouTube!)
Tuesday:
This week we got Elephant Families by Arthur Dorros, Elephant’s Story by Tracey Campbell Pearson, Eyewitness
Books: Elephant by Ian Redman, and Elephants
from Trunk to Tail by Lucy Sackett Smith.
They were all non-fiction, except Elephant’s Story, so we learned lots about elephants this week. I
love the Eyewitness Books – so much information and great pictures!
After reading through the new books and talking about this
week’s letter, Sadie made a mosaic elephant for her alphabet book.
Wednesday:
On Wednesday Sadie created her own elephant with a party
blower. While searching through elephant coloring pages, I found a finger
puppet elephant on the Crayola website. I thought Sadie would have more fun
using a party blower as a trunk, rather than her finger (plus, she has itty
bitt fingers!). I found a pack of five party blowers for less than $1 at
Walmart. They’re also available at Target and most dollar stores.
I printed the elephant picture for Sadie, and she colored it
in different shades of pink to match the party blower/trunk. As she was coloring I wrote out letter
E’s in the white space around the elephant and she practiced saying the name
and sound. She also had a lot of fun with elephant impressions!
When she was done coloring I cut the elephant out, including
the hole in the middle. I stuck the party blower in the hole from the front so
that only the rolled paper is sticking out of the elephant’s face.
She has been obsessed with blowing the elephant’s trunk all
week!
Thursday:
We made handprint elephants on Thursday. Super simple, and
Sadie loves anything with paint. I did a handprint too, so we ended up with a
mama and baby elephant. Once they were dry, I used a sharpie to add on elephant
details like ears and tusks. I'm no artist, so they’re a little funky, but I
think they turned out pretty cute anyway.
My handprint was a little bit of a fail, so I had to fix it
with the paintbrush. I promise my fingers aren’t all crooked…
Friday:
There are detailed instructions on the lesson plan, but we
had a little fun pretending to have elephant trunks on Friday. We read and
talked about how elephants use their trunks, and then we grabbed some straws
and pretended they were our trunks.
We blew bubbles and painted with our “trunks.”
Sadie required some guidance and practice with this activity
since she’s used to sucking IN with her straws. I obviously didn’t want her to
drink the paint. We practiced blowing out of the straw until I was confident I
wouldn’t be needing poison control. Older kids won’t need as much direction!
Weekend Fun:
This weekend we went out of town for Sadie’s first amusement
park adventure, so we didn’t do anything elephant related. If we stayed in
town, we would’ve visited the elephants at the zoo. The elephant exhibit is her favorite!
Side note: I may have cried a little bit when I watched
Sadie ride her first ride this weekend. I’ve become that mom. OMG, so proud of
her for sitting on a cart moving 2mph! Don’t judge me – I’m judging myself
enough for both of us.
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Download the lesson plan HERE and enjoy!
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to
use the comment section below or email me at janiewhitetaylor@gmail.com. I’d
love to help you make the project work for your little one!
Happy learning to you and your future nerds!
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