Nursery Rhymes and Fun Times: e is for elephant

Monday, May 2, 2011

e is for elephant

Sign Language

We reviewed the sign for elephant and watched our Signing Time Zoo Train DVD.

Books

Eddie Elephant's Exciting Egg Sitting by Barbara DeRubertis

This is a newer series that I discovered recently. Each letter is represented by a particular animal. In this story, Eddie the Elephant is asked to "Egg-Sit" an egg for the Emu family. Eddie tells the egg imaginative stories about elephant explorers and emperors until the little emu (Emma Lou) is born. It's a cute story that Jonathan really enjoyed. He asked for repeat readings, which is always a good indicator. I think we'll be exploring more books in this series. I also like that the publisher has activities and worksheets that go along with each book. Check them out here! (We made the finger puppets and Jonathan had fun wiggling them along with the story)

Edna Elephant by Margaret Park Bridges

This is a collection of four stories about Edna the Elephant. In this book, Edna dances, gets a new coat, bakes cookies,and arranges flowers. The stories are very simple with a few words on each page. As such, there isn't much plot to them so I was fairly bored with the book. Jonathan, however, really liked the book and wanted it read again. The book gives suggestions for helping your child read on his or her own. Jonathan was too young for this, but he would fill in words for me when I would pause. It's not bad as a beginning reader, but I probably will choose other books over this one when the time comes.

It's a Baby African Elephant! by Kelly Doudna

This was our non-fiction selection. It's a basic introduction to elephants. Unlike other books I considered, this one has only one or two sentences per page. It held Jonathan's attention fairly well. It also has pictures of elephants in their natural habitat and we enjoyed just looking at the pictures and discussing them. This wasn't a book Jonathan requested after the initial reading, but it was interesting to him the first time we read it.

Meet Babar and His Family by Laurent de Brunhoff

I grew up reading the Babar series and I've been looking forward to introducing Jonathan to Babar. This is a good introduction to Babar and the other characters in the series. This particular book teaches about the seasons. There isn't much of a storyline beyond showing the fun things the elephants in Celesteville do year round. It includes all the major characters in the Babar series and is a nice short introduction to the popular French elephant. Jonathan picked up the story and asked me to read it to him. He sat through it well and enjoyed pointing out different things in the pictures.

Art

We did an elephant craft using basic shapes. Jonathan did very well with this, he applied the glue himself and patted the pieces into place with minimal coaching from Momma.

Music

We sang the children's song "One Elephant Went Out to Play" and used these visual aids.

Gross Motor Skills

We also tried to walk like an elephant, using the song The Elephant by Hap Palmer. Here's a fun YouTube video featuring the song:

Math

I printed out elephant floor numbers from Confessions of a Homeschooler. We put them on the floor and I would call out the number and he would run over to that number. We've been having a lot of rain lately, so it was a good way to get out some of his rambunctious energy.

Movie

We tried to watch Dumbo, but Jonathan actually got very sad when Dumbo's Mommy got taken away. We had to stop the movie- it was too much for him at this age.

Anyways, we had fun learning about these big animals!

Amazon.com Widgets