Elephants in the Room: A Storytime for World Elephant Day

I had a whole superhero storytime planned for tonight, but when I got to work, my coworker, Nancy, told me it was World Elephant Day, a day dedicated to the protection of elephants and their habitats.  Well, I couldn’t resist that, especially since there are so many great elephant books, including the entire Elephant and Piggie series by Mo Willems.  I quickly reworked my plan.  Here is what I read:


My Cat, the Silliest Cat in the World by Gilles Bachelet (Amazon.com link)

I read this one mostly because I was curious about how it would go over.  It’s basically one big visual joke: the author describes various things about her cat, but all of the illustrations are of a big elephant.  A few months ago, I heard it read at a storytime at another library, and the reader just jumped in without any explanation.  The kids in that audience mostly just looked perplexed, as if they were too polite to comment on what was obviously a huge mistake.  This time, I took a moment to read the kids the title and point to the literal Elephant in the Room, asking, “Is that a cat?!”  They all answered no, and from then on, at the least the older kids (maybe three and up) were in on the joke.  The illustrations are a lot of fun, showing the elephant sleeping on the TV, playing with yarn, and performing other cat-like activities.  The kids especially liked the page showing elephants with different patterns (black-and-white, leopard-spotted, etc.), and (of course) the picture of the elephant scooping poop into the litter box.


I Broke My Trunk by Mo Willems (Amazon.com link)

The hardest thing about this storytime was choosing which Elephant and Piggie book to read, but I settled on this one because it focused on Gerald’s trunk, and because it’s so much fun to read aloud.  Piggie is shocked to see Gerald with his trunk all bandaged up.  When she asks him what happened, he tells her a long, crazy story about trying to lift two hippos, a rhinoceros, and a piano on his trunk.  Surprisingly, that’s not how his trunk got broken…  The kids and parents all loved this one, and one mom took it home to share with her older son, who had somehow missed reading this book in the series.


What to Do If An Elephant Stands on Your Foot by Michelle Robinson and Peter Reynolds (Amazon.com link)

A hapless girl is told what not to do when an elephant steps on her foot, and then proceeds to do exactly the wrong thing every time.  She startles the elephant, is chased by a tiger, gets treed by a rhinoceros, frightened by snakes, and threatened by a crocodile, until finally she is rescued by monkeys.  It’s a funny story with lots of ways for kids to participate: sneezing loudly, miming climbing a tree, taking deep breaths, etc.  The kids also enjoyed naming the animals as we got to each one.  This is a good example of a “circle story,” since the elephant is startled all over again at the end.


A Beautiful Girl by Amy Schwartz (Amazon.com link)

A little girl out on a walk meets a baby elephant who comments on her very strange trunk.  When she explains that it is actually her nose, he asks her if she eats peanuts with it or sprays herself with water.  She tells him all the things she actually uses her nose for.  She then meets a robin, who thinks she has a silly beak, a fly, who asks if she has one hundred eyes, and a goldfish, who marvels at her silly gills.  The kids laughed at many of the misunderstandings.


Elephants Have Wrinkles

I learned this song back when I briefly taught Kindermusik, and I’ve loved it ever since.  I like to ask the kids for suggestions of where elephants have wrinkles (tonight we did legs, ears, tails, and bellies), and sing the song faster each time.  Click on the triangle for the tune:

Elephants have (pat legs on each syllable)
Wrinkles, Wrinkles, Wrinkles (clap hands on each syllable)
Elephants have (pat legs on each syllable)
Wrinkles (clap hands on each syllable)
Everywhere! (stomp feet on each syllable)


Elephants have wrinkles…

On their legs! On their nose! Oh-oh!

The Elephant Goes Like This And That

The elephant goes like this and that (swing arm like a trunk)

He’s oh, so big (spread arms wide)

And he’s oh, so fat!

He has no fingers (wiggle fingers)

And he has no toes (point to toes).

But goodness gracious, what a nose! (touch your nose and mime a long trunk)

Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes

I do the standard version of this song, which most people probably know, but do it faster and faster each time.

Going to the Zoo by Tom Paxton

I did this song on the ukulele, and gave the kids rhythm instruments to play along:  The tune, lyrics, and uke chords are below:

Daddy’s taking us to the zoo tomorrow (C)
Zoo tomorrow, Zoo tomorrow. (G7)
Daddy’s taking us to the zoo tomorrow, (C)
And we can stay all day. (C  G7)

We’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo!  (F)
How about you, you, you? (C)
You can come too, too, too! (G7)
We’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo! (C G7 C)

See the elephants with the long trunk swinging,
Great big ears and a long trunk swinging.
Snuffing up peanuts with the long trunk swinging,
And we can stay all day!


See all the monkeys, they’re scritch, scritch, scratchin’.
Jumping all around and scritch, scritch, scratchin’.
Hanging by the long tails scritch, scritch, scratchin’,
And we can stay all day!


Well, we stayed all day, and I’m getting sleepy,
Sitting in the car getting sleep, sleep, sleepy.
Home already and I’m sleep, sleep, sleepy,
‘Cause we have stayed all day!

We’ve been to the zoo, zoo, zoo!
So have you, you, you!
You came too, too, too!
We’ve been to the zoo, zoo, zoo!

But Mommy’s taking us to the zoo tomorrow
Zoo tomorrow, Zoo tomorrow.
Mommy’s taking us to the zoo tomorrow,
And we can stay all day!


CRAFT: Paper Elephant Puppets

Elephant Finger Puppet by Kiley

Elephant Finger Puppet by Kiley

I found this elephant finger puppet template on KidsArtPlanet.comhttp://www.kidsartplanet.com/artsandcrafts/2007/12/10/elephant-paper-finger-puppet/.  I copied and pasted the photo into Word and enlarged it a bit, then printed it, and cut it out.  Originally, I planned to have the kids use their fingers as the trunks, but a couple of them wanted to make paper trunks instead.  For them, I cut out strips of paper, and showed them how to fold them accordion style and glue them over the hole.  It actually turned out really well, because the hole ended up looking like a mouth underneath the trunk.  (I’ve also seen similar crafts that use party blowers for the trunk, which would be cute, and might also make elephant noises).

Elephant with paper trunk

Elephant with paper trunk


Go to Sleep,Gecko by Margaret Read MacDonald; illustrated by Geraldo Valerio (Amazon.com link)

I wish I had remembered this story when I was pulling books, because it’s one of my favorites.  It’s a Balinese folktale about a gecko who complains to Elephant, the village boss, about the fireflies, who keep blinking their lights on and off outside his window.  Elephant talks to the fireflies, who tell him that they are only trying to light the path because Buffalo leaves poop in the road.  But Buffalo says he is only trying to fill the holes left by Rain, and Rain says she is only trying to make puddles for the mosquitoes so that Gecko will have something to eat.  I love the moral: This world is all connected.  Some things you just have to put up with.”  A wonderful read-aloud that fits well with either a folk-tale or environmental theme.

How to Catch an Elephant by Amy Schwartz (Amazon.com link)

This one is ridiculous, but so much fun to read.  It’s basically one long joke about how to catch an elephant with three cakes, two raisins, a telescope, and tweezers.  Warning: elephants hate cake!  The best part of this book are the descriptions of the angry elephant rampaging on the cake: “That cake is flatter than a tortilla in Oaxaca.”

What are your favorite books about elephants?

Some Like It Hot: Experiments with Temperature

For the last week of my five-week Sizzling Science workshop for fifth and sixth graders, we explored temperature.

I started out with a brief discussion of hot and cold, asking the kids what they thought happened to the molecules of a substance as it got hot.  They guessed that the heat would make the molecules move around more.  At this point, I had planned to do an experiment where I put drops of red food coloring in three glasses of water (one hot, one warm, and one cold) to show that the dye spread more rapidly through the hot water.  Unfortunately, the water heater didn’t seem to be working, so I wasn’t able to get any hot water.

Instead I pulled out a hand boiler and passed it around.  It’s a cheap toy, but a fun one. In middle school, my friends and I used to have temperature wars with the hand boiler in our classroom.  Each of us would hold one end, and we’d see whose hand was warmer by which side the liquid migrated to (I think that was how we ended up breaking the teacher’s hand boiler, and having to buy a replacement: no easy feat in the days before Amazon).  I explained that the liquid inside the bottom bulb reacts to the heat in your hand, expanding to run through the tube in the middle, and appearing to “boil” in the bulb at the top.  We talked about how traditional thermometers work on this same principle, with the mercury moving up the tube as it gets warm and expands.

Hand Boiler

Hand Boiler

At this point, I brought out a digital thermometer, and explained that these work with a special kind of electronic component called a thermoresistor or thermistor.  At low temperatures, it does not conduct electricity, but as heat is applied, it becomes more and more conductive. A microcontroller inside the thermometer uses the amount of electrical resistance to determine the temperature.  I put the digital thermometer in a glass of water, and then added some rock salt.  The kids watched as the temperature slowly dropped.  We talked about how salt is used to melt ice on the roads, and how we would also be using it to make ice cream.  The milk and sugar in ice cream freezes at a lower temperature than water, so ice alone is not cold enough to make it solidify.  Adding salt to the ice lowers the freezing temperature, causing it to melt, but also to become colder.

I followed up the salt demonstration with another demo where I put calcium chloride in a glass of water.  This time the water heated up several degrees almost instantly.  I explained that calcium chloride is also used to melt ice on roads.

Now it was time to make ice cream in a bag.  I’ve done this activity many times over the years.  It was one of the first library programs I helped with at my first children’s librarian job in Raleigh, NC.  But this was the first time I had used it as a science experiment.

I started by showing the kids all the steps, which are:

  1. Pour 1/2 cup of half-and-half into a small Ziploc bag (I tried to find the yellow-and-blue-make-green kind of bags; but all I could find were the kind with the slider on the top, which unfortunately seem more prone to leaking).
  2. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla to the bag
  3. Seal the bag up tightly, and set it inside a large Ziploc bag
  4. Fill the large bag with ice, followed by several tablespoons of ice cream salt (the recipe calls for 6 tablespoons, but I just eye-balled it)
  5. Shake the bag, or squish the small bag with your hands, for five to ten minutes until the mixture freezes.  The ice cream will be soft, more like a milkshake.

I set up the ingredients on a counter, and had the kids pair up to help each other.  One kid would hold the bag open, while the other poured in the ingredients.  I helped some of them pour the milk and vanilla (the vanilla was especially prone to spilling).  Then they all went to town shaking the bags.  A few of the big bags broke (they don’t make bags like they used to), so we did have some ice and rock salt spills, but thankfully no milk (whew!).  I gave the kids spoons and straws to eat the ice cream. A few complained that the ice cream tasted salty at first, so I ended up suggesting that they rinse the salt water off the outside of the small bag before they ate it.

Large Ziploc Bag with ice and ice cream salt surrounding the smaller bag full of ice cream mixture

Large Ziploc bag with ice and ice cream salt surrounding the smaller bag full of ice cream mixture

That part all went pretty smoothly, except I wish I had thought to bring a dairy alternative.  I had one student who not only could not drink milk, but ended up having a contact allergy just from touching it (that came as a surprise even to her mom).  Luckily, she had some medicine on hand for the hives, but I felt badly about it.  Ice cream needs to have a fairly high fat content to make it creamy rather than icy, and the girl suggested she might try making it with coconut milk, which I thought was a good idea.  I actually tried it at home–substituting the half-and-half with 1/2 cup Silk Brand Coconut Milk, and it turned out really well.  It does taste fairly coconutty, which may not appeal to everyone, but I bet it would work with Almond Milk as well.

Ice Cream made with Coconut Milk

Ice Cream made with Coconut Milk

I had intended to follow-up the ice cream with homemade thermometers, but the ice cream took about 45 minutes of my hour long class.  Instead I showed the kids the thermometer, and a number of them took some portion of the materials home.  I used the thermometer model described by Mike Calhoun on Education.com: http://www.education.com/activity/article/make_a_homemade_thermometer_middle/ because it seemed less messy than the water thermometer on SteveSpanglerScience.com: http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/water-thermometer-sick-science.  But that night I woke up in the middle of the night worried that someone’s little brother might drink their thermometer, which contained rubbing alcohol, so maybe the water thermometer would have been better.  Both of them are a bit tricky to transport without spilling.

Basically, both thermometers involve sealing a drinking straw inside a water bottle with modeling clay, with the top sticking out.  For Calhoun’s model, you first fill the bottle about a quarter full of equal parts water and rubbing alcohol, and add a few drops of red food coloring. For the water thermometer, you fill the bottle all the way to the top with water, dyed blue with a few drops of food coloring.  In both cases, you mold the modeling clay around the drinking straw at the mouth of the bottle, trying to make an airtight seal, while keeping the straw itself open.  When you put the bottle in hot water, or hold it with your hands, the liquid inside the bottle expands and travels up the straw (the rubbing alcohol reacts more easily to heat, which is why you don’t need to fill the bottle completely).  You can even use another thermometer to gauge the temperature, and then mark that on the side of the straw or on the bottle (with the water thermometer, you can even tape an index card to the portion of the straw that sticks out of the bottle, and mark the temperature on that).

Water thermometer from SteveSpanglerScience.com

Water thermometer from SteveSpanglerScience.com

Homemade Thermometer from Education.com

Homemade Thermometer from Education.com

I was sad to say goodbye to the kids in the class, many of whom I had become quite attached to.  They were a wonderful group, and I’m hoping to see them at future workshops.  I was nervous about offering these science classes at first, but they ended up being the highlight of my summer. I’d love to hear other ideas or activities that have been successful in other classes or libraries, so please share them in the comments.