This week, the kids chose African Elephants. An all-time favorite for many, these giants are incredible! Take a stroll through our week of adventure learning about African Elephants.
Books! Books! Books!
This week was Halloween which threw us off a few days but Wednesday, we made it to the library. After successfully returning all of last week's books, we arguably overborrowed from the kid's elephant section. Our books help us put together a list of facts learned! How to be an Elephant: Growing up in the African Wild was a fantastic, fact-filled book. It is for a bit of an older crowd.
Here were our top 3 picks:
How to be an Elephant: Growing up in the African Wild by Katherine Roy
Elephants Remember: A True Story by Jennifer O'Connell
National Geographic Kids Great Migrations Elephants by Laura Marsh
Create!
This week, I went simple, with little prep. I cut out elephant ears, an oval for the face and rolled up a construction paper trunk. With markers and washi tape, they each pieced together their African elephants that we hung on the fridge. This works on fine motor taping skills, even puzzling together the components of an elephant. By the end of the week, they'd added the rest of the body by themselves!
Get Moving!
Elephants walk on their tip-toes! We asked Alexa to play "sounds from the African Safari" and danced around on our tip-toes. Our crafts from Tuesday wound up a bit like masks, so the kids danced with them as well.
Elephant Eats
Elephants are herbivores: they eat sticks, grass, plants, tree bark and sometimes, mom's poop. Since it's Halloween week, we had tons of candy and chose "bark" as one of our foods! We also dyed grass-like pasta green for "grass" and had mozzarella balls for "mom's poop".
Summarize
Each week, the kids summarize our animal to Dad using their top 5 facts, their crafts and favorite book.
Top Five Facts
Our favorite! Elephant babies will eat adult poop for food and nutrients.
Elephant babies grow in their mom's belly for 22 months.
Female elephants remain together with their herd for life.
Elephants walk on their tip-toes.
Elephants are herbivores: they eat sticks, grass, plants, tree bark and sometimes mom's poop.
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