Elephants in the House

For the last couple of days, E has been learning about elephants. We like to have "theme days" in order for E to have fun and learn new things. We coloured a picture of an elephant and pointed out all the different parts: wrinkled skin, 4 legs, big ears, tail, and of course trunk, a new word that E seems quite proud of knowing. We made an elephant's trunk out of an old stocking and scrunched-up newspaper.

<--Here, E is pretending to be an elephant with her stocking and newspaper trunk. Sorry about the blurry photo. It's difficult to get a good shot of an active toddler, especially with only a mobile phone.

We're singing "One grey elephant balancing, step by step on a piece of string...". Can you see the string on the ground? It stretched all the way through the living room, kitchen and dining room and partway down the hallway. Lots of balancing! Maybe we should have been singing "One purple, sparkly elephant...," judging by her outfit. That just doesn't quite fit the tune. :)

Continuing with the elephant theme this morning, we did an elephant craft that I think I've seen online somewhere, but can't remember where. I printed out a page of four large ovals (bodies) and four small ovals (ears), for E to colour in. She chose purple, red and black crayons. Once the colouring was done, I cut out the shapes and E glued them to pieces of cardboard. Adding little cardboard trunks, googly eyes and a couple of clothes-pegs, they became elephants. 

It kind of annoys me that they don't have tails. I really wanted to keep the ovals as simple as possible as E is still learning her shapes. We could probably add tails of some sort. They're not as well balanced as I'd hoped, either. E has trouble making them stand up.

Tomorrow, I think we may just have to do "E is for Elephant".

-Polly