World Elephant Day, 2013

 

 

Today was World Elephant Day. How could we *NOT* celebrate this day here in the herd?!

 

 

School was completely based around the holiday. We dressed in "safari" gear....

 

 

 

Poem time was fun (this poem has hand motions, as well). I learned this from the kids' preschool teacher years ago. I'm sorry that I do not know the original author.

 

 

Then, we set to work on the kids' very first lapbook experience.

I found this Speedy Elephant Lapbook from Homeschool Bits on the Currclick site, during their awesome "pick your own price" sale last month. Score!

 

 

The elephants set to work on cutting out their pieces. (I did help Pink a little bit...there were a lot of shapes for small fingers and hands!)

 

They colored some of the pictures while I did an emergency print of a second copy on a page.

 

Love the look of all the fun shapes and booklets in this lapbook!

 

We read the mini-book through together, taking turns reading. Then, I let the elephants deduce the answers to fill in the lapbook flaps....

 

The finished product!

 

We then watched an episode of African Wild (found on Netflix) featuring elephants. Real elephants displayed behaviors and facts we had just learned in the lapbook. Plus, it's always cool to watch a movie for school work!!

 

Next up....my favorite part of special days. Arts and Crafts!!

 

This painting was a gift to Blue Elephant from the Grand Elephants a few years ago on his birthday. It was painted by one of the elephants at our local zoo.

 

It was also our inspiration!!

 

Time to do a painting with no hands! Using their  teeth to mimic the trunk of an elephant, they both took a turn creating a masterpiece!

First up: Blue Elephant!

 

Pink takes her turn next.

Lots of colors and shapes. Creative!!

 

What World Elephant Day would be complete without a parade involving masks?!

Build the mask.

 

Then color and glue together.....

 

Parade time!! Stomp and trumpet just like an elephant throughout the house!

 

The elephants then watched a Babar movie on Netflix while I prepped dinner for the evening. (We did school from lunchtime into the afternoon today. That's the beauty of homeschool...we dictate it, it doesn't dictate us!)

 

After dinner was over and Daddy Elephant was off to work, the elephants sat down to play

Puzzle Switch: Elephant Edition.

{Puzzle Switch is a game I made up on the fly on a rainy day when my 'angels' were driving me crazy.

It involves two puzzles of the same piece count, and two players.

They begin sorting and building their own puzzles.
At any moment, if I call out "Switch!" they have to trade seats and work on the other puzzle.

It's fun to holler out "Switch!" twice in 10 seconds just to see them scramble.... }

So we took the two elephant 100 piece puzzles we have (What?! Don't YOU have more than one in your house??lol) and played Puzzle Switch.

It was fun, as usual!

 

Thanks for celebrating World Elephant Day with our herd!!

See you soon!