Elmer at baby book club

We've had another lovely afternoon at baby book club. Today we read Elmer. I'm goibg to be completely honest and say I chose this book based purely on the fact that I'd seen an activity I wanted to do.

Elmer is one of those books that I thought I knew. After all, it's been around for ages and everybody recognises that cute little patchwork elephant. But when it came to planning book club I realised I didn't have the book and I didn't really know the story.

I wasn't going to let that stop me though. Off to Amazon I went and grabbed myself a copy of the book. And what a lovely book it was!



I loved the theme in Elmer that it was ok to be different and that you shouldn't have to change in order to be accepted. It was great that they could get this message across in a way that was fun for children and didn't come across as too preachy.

As always after reading the story together, we got messy together at book club. We had two activities today. The first was to make our very own patchwork elephants using cut down milk bottles and tissue paper. I was quite impressed with my example one but soon discovered it was much more difficult with Monkey helping. She seemed to enjoy taking the paper squares off much more than putting them on. We got there in the end though.

The next activity was to help all the grey elephants get ready for Elmer's Day by decorating them with bright colours. We decided that just as Elmer rolled in elephant coloured berries to disguise themselves, the grey elephants should roll in brightly coloured berries. The babies loved squashing all the berries with their toy elephants and of course they ate lots too. And made a total mess!

The next book club is a book that's a favourite of Little Hercules - 

The Bears in the Bed and the Great Big Storm. We've never read it before so we're looking forward to that. What have you been reading this week?