E is for Elephants!

We studied about the letter Ee this week,
and, of course, we had to learn about Elmer the Elephant!

I found this printable here.
We used dot markers to decorate them.

This cute book about this Elmer who is different.
He celebrates who he is and stays true to himself.

We had them act out the Elmer book with the puppets they made.

For our snack we made some tastey elephant treats!

We took biscut dough and stretched it around a marshmallow,
dipped it into melted butter,
and dipped into cinnamon sugar.
For the ears we used cinnamon rolls cut in half.
Then we cooked it according to the biscuit container.
Thanks Acts Homeschool for the idea!

I know I should make healther treats,
but I like to make them memorable for kids! ;)

Next we moved onto patterns
This is my favorite way to introduce patterns.
I lost my hippo I used to have when I quit teaching,
so this was the perfect opportunity to make another.

My hubby sketched out this elephant in 2 minutes.
I should have used him before to do my art work!

So I used a stencil to create a shape pattern onto word strips,
you can also use stickers.
When teaching you pull out the first part of the pattern
like if it's an AB pattern pull out the first three shapes,
and then you have them guess each subsequent shape.
It makes them feel really smart.

Then we went to the classroom for math center.
I made these the summer before I started teaching first grade.
All I used was the pattern block die cuts and glued them onto small word strips, and them laminating them.

All I used was the pattern block die cuts and glued them onto small word strips, and laminated them.


The kids loved doing this.

I also made these during summer time.
 I made a black line copy of the maze,
and colored in a pattern that the children extended.

This link and this link aren't exactly the same as what I had, but you could adapt it a little.