Keep reading for some fun Ellie book activities for preschool. These activities are part of our Storytime Club, which includes 10 weeks of book-inspired activities. To learn more about our Storytime Club, click here!
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ELLIE
Have you ever read the book Ellie by Mike Wu? If you haven’t, be sure to check it out! This sweet story has a wonderful message for preschoolers about being unique, finding your hidden talents, and celebrating who you are!
In this story, Ellie and her friends are living happily at the zoo. One day, their zookeeper, Walt, tells them that the zoo is shutting down. Ellie and her friends are devastated, so they decide to try and save the zoo.
Each animal starts using their talents & abilities to clean things up, but Ellie can’t help like the rest of the animals. She’s feeling pretty sad about it. But when she paints a wall by accident, the zookeeper is AMAZED at her talent! It turns out, Ellie’s artistic talent is what saves the zoo!
Click on the picture below to learn more about this sweet book!
Check out these fun Ellie book activities that can help bring this story to life for your preschool, pre-k, or kindergarten littles!
These activities are all part of my Ellie printable pack, which can be found in my shop here!
LITERACY: ZOO ANIMAL SYLLABLES
Since Ellie and her friends live at the zoo, I wanted to make sure to include lots of zoo animal fun in this pack! The literacy activity for this book focuses on syllables, which are an important skill to practice for our pre-readers.
You actually have 2 syllable activities to choose from for literacy. The first is a syllable word sort, so your students will sort the pictures into 1, 2, or 3 syllable words. The second are syllable clip cards. Students will use a clothespin to clip the correct answer. They can also trace the numbers to practice number formation.
MATH: ANIMAL TALLY CHART & BAR GRAPH
It’s important to cover a variety of math skills when working with early learners. Some parents and teachers think that early math is simply number sense, but there are actually 5 main areas to focus on: Number Sense, Algebraic Activities, Geometry, Measurement, and Data Analysis & Probability.
Those seem like concepts well beyond preschool years, but they actually aren’t! We’ll set the foundation now so students can build on these skills as they get older. This week’s math activity is focusing on the area of Data Analysis & Probability.
First, students will sort the animals into Land, Air, and Water. Then, they’ll use that information to create either a tally chart or a bar graph (or both!) This activity is a great way for students to show a visual representation of data.
FINE MOTOR: FREE THE ANIMALS
Have you tried playing Free the Animals before? It’s such an EASY game to play that is filled with fine motor practice! We thought it was perfect to play for one of our Ellie book activities.
To set up this game, put toy animals (or the animal cards from the printable pack) into a basket or bin. Then use painter’s tape (or string) to cover the animals. Have your students free the animals from the bin! They could put the animals into a muffin tin like we did, or they could sort them onto the Land, Air, and Water mats from the Math Activity. Plus I’m sure this game will lead to a lot of imaginative play, too!
GROSS MOTOR: ANIMAL PARADE
Moving like animals is always fun for kids! We like to play this Animal Movement Cube game, which is one of the most-popular downloads from my website! To go along with Ellie, we decided to try a new way to move like an animal: An Animal Parade!
First, take painter’s tape and tape different types of lines onto your floor. I taped ours to our tile, and it didn’t leave any marks. But please try it on a small area of your floor first, just to make sure it doesn’t leave any damage. Once the lines are down, have your little one choose an animal card (either from the Math Activity or the Literacy Activity from this pack) and move like that animal while following the lines. They could also dress up like an animal for the parade, too!
CRAFT: ELEPHANT HANDPRINTS
I love handprint crafts, and this elephant one is no different! This one is especially sweet because it’s made from my handprint and my daughter’s handprint. Such a special keepsake for us!
SNACK: ELEPHANT BAGEL
This was an easy snack to make since I already had everything on hand! My kids thought this was fun and loved having it for breakfast when we read .
YOU TUBE: COSMIC KIDS YOGA
Have you tried Cosmic Kids Yoga before? We love those videos! This week, we decided to add the Jungle Safari yoga adventures to our plans!
READING RESPONSE: JOURNAL WRITING PAGE
Teaching our little ones to reflect on what they’ve read is a skill we want to start from the beginning. These journal writing pages allow them to draw and write a response to this story.
ELLIE PRINTABLE PACK
All of the activities in this pack can be found in our Ellie printable pack, which can be found in my shop here!
Do you love this story, too?! Do you have any fun activities that would be great for it? Comment below or find me on Instagram [@littleslovelearningblog] and let me know!
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To check out more book-inspired activities, head over to our Storytime Club!
Happy Learning!
