Yesterday, marked World Elephant Day and since thats Sofia's favorite animal we decided to do something fun to celebrate it. Did you know that the trunk of the African elephant has two finger-like projections on the end that it uses to pick up small things, like berries and leaves?!
Sofia and I worked on three different activities for Teach My Toddler Tuesday that highlighted these incredible animals and you can try at home too! First, we created our own sensory bin to showcase an natural elephant habitat of a mom and her babies thanks to the elephants we had received from Safari Ltd.
Here are all the items we used to create this sensory bin:
- Rocks and small branches from our backyard
- (1) Oval tray
Her favorite part was stomping the baby elephants in the kinetic sand we used and giving them a pretend bath with the water bubbles we used to make a lake. We also talked about fun facts that had to do with mom and baby elephants.
Here are a few:
-> A baby elephant is called a calf. It weighs about 250 pounds at birth and stands about three feet tall.
-> Calves can't see very well at first, but they can recognize their mothers by touch, scent, and sound.
-> Baby elephants stay very close to their mothers for the first couple of months.
For a fun print out visit - https://www.thoughtco.com/facts-about-elephant-babies-1829282
Next, we played with our mini elephants and worked on a fun counting game called How Many Stomps?! Here Sofia used a stamp pad, piece of construction paper and a few mini elephants to show their stomps on the page. After she finished we counted them together and then lined up the same number of stomps to elephants. She could have done this all day if she had the chance.
Lastly, we used our three different elephants - Mom, Baby and Mini to go across the globe. Using a flat globe felt photo from Target, we lined up each elephant and looked to see how long it took them to get across the world, as well as where elephants live. Landing on Africa, Asia and India :)
For more on our partner Safari Ltd, make sure to click on the link below. Plus use our code BambinaDiaries at check out for 20% off your order.
Fun Fact: Since 1982, it has been their passion and privilege to make learning fun for children. Their hand-painted learning toys for kids, from dinosaurs to wild animal toys; make the wonders of the world easy to grasp both physically and cognitively. Plus, for more than 35 years and three generations, Safari Ltd. has been fostering curiosity, conservation, and imagination in children around the world.