E Week Activities

As promised, here are our E activities.









 

Elephant Parade

Wow. This is probably one of my favorite activities to date. And the kids enjoyed it so much, we did it several times. And, as can be expected: simple.

Step 1: Everyone gets in a line. You're in front. You're the leader.
Step 2: Push PLAY on the "elephant parade" music. THIS is my favorite.
Step 3: Forget you're an adult. Lead the little ones around the room using your arm as a trunk, dancing however you think elephants might dance. Or however you want to.

Bam! Elephant Parade!


Easter Egg Puzzle

My beautiful Momma actually created this one, so I must give credit where credit is due. Since we did this activity with the little guy, along with all of his little cousins. Since we had a variety of ages (range 2 to 8), my Momma personalized the puzzles - the older the child, the more pieces the puzzle was cut into, the more difficult the puzzle.

The puzzles were kept in envelopes with each child's name; they assembled their puzzles, then were given glue sticks (some with assistance for the very young) to glue the assembled puzzle to a piece of paper. We then gave them some foam stickers and let them go to town to decorate their assembled egg puzzles. (Though my little guy chose to decorate around his egg instead.)


E Hunt

The little ones of all ages had a blast with this one. Prior to them arriving, I printed out many Es, cut them out. I then selected a color for each of the children, and circled the Es in those colors. I then hid the Es around the room. I hid them appropriately according to ages. (The eight-year-old had the red Es, which were all hidden very inconspicuously around the room. The two-year-old had the orange Es, which were hidden very obviously around the room.) Once they found each E, they stuck them on the wall next to the big E I created. They had a blast. The end result looked like this:

 E-E-Elephant Eggs

 Alright, I'm stepping out of the norm here. I actually did something complicated. At least it was complicated as far as my standards go.

This one all started when my Momma went looking to purchase the Elefun game. She couldn't find it in the store that she was at, but she did find this game: Elefun Snackin Safari.

I don't know about you, but buying these kinds of games often has to be saved for birthdays and Christmas, because I don't want to/can't afford to buy toys on a whim.

And thus my (maybe a little ghetto) version of the game was born.

Materials?
This Print Out (or make your own)
Construction Paper 
Old (or new) Nylon Stockings - Washed (knee highs preferred, or cut off the legs for full stockings)
Masking  or Duct Tape
Some Type of Magnets
Paperclips
Some Type of Elastic String

What did I do? I'll keep this as simple as possible:

Print out the head.
Cut out the trunk nose.
Place a magnet in the bottom of the nylon, and tie a small knot to hold it in place.
String the nylon through the trunk and tape to the back side of the elephant.
Tape, glue, or otherwise attach the elephant to construction paper.
Cut out the eyes.
Hole punch the sides, string with enough elastic string that you can somehow attach it to your little one's face or forehead.
Cut out egg-shaped pieces of construction paper.
Tape magnets or paperclips to the back of each egg.
Scatter the eggs on the floor.
See how many eggs your little ones can gather using the nylon "trunk."
No hands allowed!

These are the button magnets from Walmart that I used.

Taped magnets or paperclips for each egg.

Close up of the finished "mask" part.

What was really great was watching all of us adults trying to pick up the eggs too. It was absolutely HILARIOUS. And a whole lot of fun.