Elmer - What a Story About a Patchwork Elephant Can Teach Children

This week we read every Elmer book from our school library. Elmer is a patchwork Elephant that lives among a herd of "ordinary" elephants. Most of the kids were not familiar with this fun book series and we had a great time reading about Elmer's adventures.

Other than enjoying a fun story, you may wonder how reading children's books connects to other skills. Using the book Elmer (and other books in this series), we....

* talked about the jobs of author and illustrator.

* compared the main character, Elmer, with other Elephants in the story.

* Introduced new vocabulary words such as the word "chuckled".

* Explore the concepts of compassion and being unique.

* Make Predictions based on what we understood about the characters.

* Create our own Elmer's using tissue paper (Fine motor development, coordination, focus, and determination).

If I thought for long about this, I am sure that I could come up with many other things as well. I believe that the kids enjoyed listening to stories about Elmer and will not be surprised to have some of them check out books about Elmer when we start going to the library.