Using the popular children's song "Elephants Balancing" as our inspiration, we create an easy but super cute picture.
Using memory to recreate the picture, fine motor skills to assemble it all, reasoning to figure out the order of pasting, verbal communication and recount to sing the song and early mathematics skills to count and add the elephants, makes this seemingly simple little activity full of fun and learning.
We used 3 elephants that we cut out of some recycled wrapping paper, 3 green kinder circles, some brown paper for the tree-trunks, a piece of string and a couple of pieces of paper to mount it all on.
Before sticking it all down, we created the picture first, rearranging it until we were happy with the design
The next part of the activity included sticking down all the pieces back in their original places. Talk about the steps/order and layering. Which pieces need to be glued first? What would happen if we stuck the string down first? etc
Madeline's finished picture after she re-arranged it and glued it all down
Song Lyrics
One grey elephant balancing
Step by step on a piece of string
Thought it was such a wonderful stunt
That he called for another elephant
Two grey elephants balancing
Step by step on a piece of string
Thought it was such a wonderful stunt
That they called for another elephant
Three grey elephants balancing
Step by step on a piece of string
Thought it was such a wonderful stunt
That they called for another elephant
Four grey elephants balancing
Step by step on a piece of string
Thought it was such a wonderful stunt
That they called for another elephant
Five grey elephants balancing
Step by step on a piece of string
All of a sudden the piece of string broke
And down came all the elephant folk
Step by step on a piece of string
Thought it was such a wonderful stunt
That he called for another elephant
Two grey elephants balancing
Step by step on a piece of string
Thought it was such a wonderful stunt
That they called for another elephant
Three grey elephants balancing
Step by step on a piece of string
Thought it was such a wonderful stunt
That they called for another elephant
Four grey elephants balancing
Step by step on a piece of string
Thought it was such a wonderful stunt
That they called for another elephant
Five grey elephants balancing
Step by step on a piece of string
All of a sudden the piece of string broke
And down came all the elephant folk
Some tips:
- Use any elephant pictures you can find or draw them yourself. Cut them out of a picture, print some off the computer or make them from your child's hand prints etc.
- As our elephants were white (not grey), we had to change the lyrics in the song to suit our picture (eg "3 white elephants balancing...")
- To simplify this activity, do the cutting and arranging yourself and assist your child in sticking the pieces down, recalling where they went and the order they get stuck down while singing the song.
- To extend this activity, allow your child to do the cutting, arranging, memory recall, sticking etc as they are able.
- Figuring out the process and order to stick down the pieces will be challenging for young children so continue to communicate with them throughout the activity
- Here is a youtube video of the song with elephant puppets to compliment the activity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QXkFtdFy0A&feature=related
Debs :)