E is for Elephant

Last week for school, we read several books about elephants.  We learned that there are two different types of elephants: African and Asian. The African elephant is the largest land mammal.  The girls learned that elephants have small eyes, which are not great for seeing.  They have large ears (African elephants have larger ears than Asian elephants).  These ears are great for hearing.  Elephants can hear sounds that humans cannot hear.  These large ears are also used to keep the elephants cool.  According to one of the books that we read, the ears of African elephants can be as large as six feet!  Arin thought that was amazing (as did I) since that is the height of her daddy.  According to another book that we read, elephants walk at an average speed of 6mph, but they can run as fast as 25mph!  They learned several other interesting facts of elephants this week as well, including the names of male, female, and baby elephants, etc.
We had hoped to visit an elephant rehabilition center (see this link) while visiting my parents, but they were already booked for the day we were there. 

Arin completed an elephant lapbook.  I found the resources for this lapbook here and here.

Some of the resources would not fit inside of the file folder, but they were also found within the above two links.

(In this picture, Arin is teaching her sister how to color in the lines.  She has been taking it upon herself to teach her sister several things lately.  So sweet!)

Arin also practiced writing the letter E and e with a worksheet which can be found here.

These are the elephant books that we read this week.
Elmer Takes Off by David McKee
Baby Animals: Elephants by Kate Petty
Horton Hears a Who! by Dr. Seuss
African Elephants by Roland Smith
Animals, Animals, Animals: African Elephant by Alison Tibbitts and Alan Roocroft
Elmer Again by David McKee
Amazing Animals: Elephants by Jacqueline Dineen
Suzy Saves Elysha, The Baby Elephant by James Dowling
Jungle Bullies by Steven Kroll
The Obvious Elephant by Bruce Robinson
Elephants and Their Calves by Margaret Hall
Elephants Cannot Dance! by Mo Willems
African Elephants: The World's Biggest Land Mammals by Kirsten Hall
But No Elephants by Jerry Smath (Arin's favorite elephant book this week)
Elephant by Patricia Whitehouse