Elephant Themed Toddler School Activities

Do your kiddos love taking a trip to the zoo?! We sure do! My kids cannot wait to go to the zoo to see the elephants! I created this elephant themed toddler unit to bring a little piece of the zoo to you and your littles at home!!

Lesson Components

This unit is made up of 5 lessons that will work on each include the following activities:

• literacy/language
• sensory bin
• math or science activity
• fine motor activity
• gross motor activity
• art activity

If you want to learn more about how to get started planning activities for your little ones, download my FREE guide for everything you need to know about the skill areas we incorporate into toddler school:

Elephant Toddler Art Activities

To kick off our unit on elephants we started with Conner’s favorite thing…painting! He was so excited to tell me everything he knew about elephants while using his imagination to paint his own! I gave him a couple different colors and a paintbrush and he dove right in! The fun in art for littles is the process and Conner was so proud of his finished product.

Fine Motor Activities

I LOVE activities that work on fine motor skills. I know being a teacher makes me a little biased about this topic but perfecting these skills at a young age is SO important and it’s easy to do! All you need are hand-held materials and the skills you can teach through these utensils are infinite.

Dot markers are a favorite fine motor tool in our home! They are quick and easy to use while working on fine motor and literacy. We practiced the letter E name while Conner focused so hard on staying inside each dot…don’t you love seeing them so determined?!?

This is the perfect activity for working both the muscles and the brain! In this activity, we used clothespins and clip cards to match the big and little E! It was perfect for letter identification while using those tiny little muscles to build up those fine motor skills.

I wasn’t kidding when I said we did a ton of fine motor activities during this unit! I always love a Q-tip painting activity because they are fun and easy to set up. Q-tips are also great for building smaller muscles because children use a fine grip to hold the q-tip to paint. To set up this activity, just grab liquid paint, a couple Q-tips, and the letter E printable and you are ready to go! My little guy worked so hard to keep his dots inside the letter E. You will also want to make sure to take advantage of practicing the letter name multiple times throughout the activity. The more exposure a child has to letters, the faster they will learn their names!

Proper scissor skills are SO important for our littles as they get older. As a parent and teacher, I know the feeling all too well… The one you feel in your gut each time you take out scissors with little ones. I am here to tell you that although you may feel a little anxious to work on scissor skills with your little ones, it will pay off! All your little ones need is some assistance and just practice practice practice! The more they practice, the better their hand eye coordination will get.

One of my favorite ways to teach children how to cut with scissors is to cut on a straight line. In this activity, Conner used scissors to cut up a straight line to reach the elephant, He did need a little help at times, but that is perfectly normal for a 2-3 year old child.

Math Activities

In this math activity, we worked on counting and number identification through these printable counting cards! Conner chose his favorite mini erasers, but any counter you have on hand will work. As he added an eraser to eat elephant, we counted together. Then, Conner would point to the number and we would say the name of the number together.

Sensory Activities

I love sensory exploration just as much as Conner does! To prepare this activity, grab an empty water bottle and a bin. Then, just attach the elephant face to the bottle using some tape rolled up underneath. Place in the bin with some pom pom balls and a pair of plastic tweezers. Your little one is going to love feeding the elephant! Plus, it engages those fine motor muscles that we have been working so hard on. We played with this sensory bin all day long!

As you know by now, I am all about offering as many opportunities to practice letters as I can. Sensory bins are another fun way for little ones to practice letters. Plus, they can be so much fun that your child won’t even realize they are learning! To set up this sensory bin, just fill a bin with some rice, then add the big E and little e elephant cards into the rice!

Gross Motor Activity

I love to take our gross motor activities outside! Our favorite activity was this elephant walk. This elephant walk is WAY harder than it looks. Start by laying these elephant footprints down in a line. Then, get onto all fours to walk like an elephant! Don’t be afraid to get on all fours with your little ones. These are the memories they won’t forget! We really tested our coordination skills in this activity, plus we had so much fun practicing our elephant noises… It definitely sounded like the zoo in our backyard!

This unit includes everything you need to make teaching your toddlers about elephants EASY! I hope you enjoy playing and learning with your little ones! this week. If you want to make learning EASY this week, just grab my Elephant Toddler School Unit for all the fun!

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Written on March 10th, 2021 by Laurin Brainard