Keep reading for some fun preschool activities based on Ellie by Mike Wu. These activities are part of our Storytime Club, which includes activities inspired by 12 books to keep your little one learning ALL year long! To learn more about our Storytime Club, click here!
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ELLIE BOOK ACTIVITIES
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 activities to bring this story to life for your preschool, pre-k, or kindergarten littles. These are great to use at home with your own kiddos or in your early childhood classroom. If you’re interested, all the printables can be found here.
Click here to check out the song I sing before reading this book!
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! *You can also check out more zoo ideas in THIS post!
This literacy activity focuses on syllables, which are an important part of helping our little ones develop phonological awareness.
Have your little one choose a clip card, count out the number of syllables, and then use a clothespin to clip the correct answer. They can also trace the numbers to practice number formation.
Another option is to have your little one sort the animals into groups by syllables. Then they can record the number of syllables in each animal’s name on their recording sheet.
You can also use these animals to practice beginning sounds instead. Helping your little one learn to isolate the beginning sound in a word helps them develop their phonemic awareness skills, which is one of the most important precursors to reading.
MATH: ANIMAL TALLY CHART & BAR GRAPH
It’s important to cover a variety of math skills to prepare our little ones for kindergarten. Some parents and teachers think that early math is simply number sense, but there are actually 5 main areas to focus on:
- Number Sense
- Algebra
- Geometry
- Measurement
- 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 math activity is focusing on the area of Data Analysis & Probability.
First, your little one 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.
You can turn this activity into a gross motor movement game by taping up the cards around the room and having your little one go on a scavenger hunt for the animals! Then have them tape the animals to the correct cards.
You could also turn this into a sensory activity by adding the animal cards to a sensory bin before having your little one sort them. So many possibilities!
Need more zoo animal activities? Check out my zoo animals blog post!
FINE MOTOR: RESCUE THE ANIMALS
Have you tried playing Rescue the Animals before? It’s such an EASY game that’s 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 Ellie printable pack) into a basket or bin. Use string to cover the animals. Then have your little one free the animals from the bin! It’s such a simple game, but I know it’ll lead to a lot of imaginative play for your preschooler!
No string? No problem! You could also use painter’s tape to cover the basket. Another idea is to have your little one put the animals into a muffin tin after they rescue them, or they could sort them onto the Land, Air, and Water Mats from the Math Activity. They could also use tweezers or tongs to remove the animals without touching the tape.
GROSS MOTOR: ANIMAL PARADE
Moving like animals is always fun for kids! We like to play this FREE 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: The 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! You want 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 might hop like a kangaroo, slither like a snake, or run fast like a lion. They could also dress up like an animal for the parade, too!
Another idea is to have them line up the animals they rescued from the fine motor activity and pretend they’re having a parade!
CRAFT: HANDPRINT ELEPHANTS
I love handprint crafts like this giraffe one, but this elephant is definitely my favorite! This craft is so special to me because it’s made from my handprint and my daughter’s handprint. Such a sweet 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 the morning we read Ellie.
READING RESPONSE: JOURNAL WRITING & BOOKMARK
To wrap up this unit, you can have your little one write and draw about their favorite part of Ellie. I’ve also included a bookmark that your little one can keep forever to remember this story and the main message: You are unique and special!
ELLIE ACTIVITY PACK
All of the activities in this post can be found in my Ellie Activity Pack, which can be found in my shop here!
Have you read Ellie yet? Do you have any fun activities that would be great to add to our list? Comment below or find me on Instagram [@littleslovelearningblog] and let me know!
love these ideas? pin for later!
To check out more book-inspired activities, head over to our Storytime Club!
Happy Learning!
