Have you read Elmer? It is a book about an elephant, a multi colored elephant. One who gets tired of feeling different. He wants to be the same as everyone else. His present state of a patchwork of all colors makes him feel self conscience. He decides to paint himself gray like his friends. He eventually figures out what happens when you try to act like something you are not.
The story of Elmer tries to teach us that we are the way we are and sometimes when we try to change who we are and it's really not necessary. The people you have in your life accept you and like you for who you are. Kids need reinforcement to know that their differences are no excuse to change and certainly no reason to make fun of people.
To emphasize the beauty of Elmer we made some crafts to go along with the book. We started with a color by number sheet. My daughter had to follow directions to color the appropriate numbers. However you could just skip the directions and color Elmer whatever colors you want. That's the true fun of this book.
The second craft we did was to recycle good old toilet paper rolls. She selected a color of her choice and we constructed an elephant.
Lastly we pulled out the Legos. My daughter is getting better with directions. Legos make it easy to assemble their projects. Step by step she followed the instructions to build her very own Elmer.
Reading a book and following it up with a craft or two helps your child in multiple ways. A child is able to recreate a scene, reflect on a important point or summarize the overall story. Creating a project is not only fun, the child is making a lasting memory of a story as well as bringing it to life. We found all our projects on Pinterest.
Pinterest is a great resource to tie books together. With a little research you can find projects including crafts, food, coloring sheets, lesson plans as well as other theme related books.
We had fun with this project and I can't wait to read and craft another book with the kids.
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