Family Storytime: Elephants

Summer storytime finally started. We had a nice break, but I was eager to get back to reading stories aloud. 

There are a lot of great, fun elephant books available to read for a storytime. We went with elephants because the summer reading theme, Reading by Design, uses Little Elliot the elephant from Mike Curato's picture books as a mascot. I was not disappointed with this animal theme.

After a quick introduction and a lively time with the bean bag song, it was time to get into our first story, Little Elliot, Big Family. The kids liked this book because we are doing a seek and find passive program with Little Elliot this summer and they didn't know he had any stories to go along with him. I found this story to be a little long for my group and I wasn't too excited that it took place in winter, but it was a good start nonetheless. 

After our first story, it was time to break it up with a flannel board activity. I told the story of Elmer the Elephant using flannel board pieces and had each of the kids bring up either a gray elephant or a colorful elephant. The kids were rather hyper throughout the whole storytime, but I still managed to keep their attention for the most part and this flannel helped.

Our next picture book read was Strictly No Elephants by Lisa Mantchev. I thought this was a cute story about a boy who has a pet elephant and decides to make his own pet club for those who may not have common pets, like elephants. It's a great story encouraging acceptance. I would say this was the group's favorite out of the three books.

Next, we did another flannel board activity involving an elephant rhyme about colors and counting each of them as they were put on the board. This was easier to present than Elmer, only because a rhyme is easier to follow with an antsy group versus a full story. It also was more interactive for the kids than the storytelling. 

Our last book was How to Cheer Up Dad by Fred Koehler. I chose this one because it was a sweet dad story about elephants to read the day after Father's Day. The parents enjoyed this one too. 

For our craft, we made elephant finger puppets. The kids found it hilarious how you can use your finger as the elephant trunk, but you can use noisemakers too. This was a simple, fun, quick craft perfect for storytime.