what's in the mystery bag: elmer

I have to admit I have no idea where the mystery bag is right now but a year or so ago, I was pretty constant at filling it with items relating to our story and introducing it at circle time. This week we read Elmer and dived in to all elephants all the time...I found this photo in my archives and  thought I would put it here to remind myself to find that darn mystery bag (handmade by me from this diy) and fill it up! Here's what was inside:

*handmade Elmer beanbag
*Elmer domino
*elephant beads from a Jungle Animal Pack
*squares of color (red & green)
*animal flash cards, the Elephant is from this set and lists facts on the back

one elephant went out to play...

For our week of Elmer we focused on colors, squares, and elephants. One of the songs we sang a lot was this one and since the children really enjoyed it, I set up this invitation to play.

We sang the song up to five elephants and then the children tried placing all ten elephants onto the web. The elephants were purchased from Amazon and I am very happy with them. They connect trunk to tail and the children loved connecting them and playing with them. I often found them in the dollhouse.

One child connected the grouping on the left and told me he made a big circle. He then connected the four on the right and told me he made a little circle. We were joined by another child who said "That's a square! That's a square of elephants".  She then leaned over and read out the numbers and told me that there were ten elephants. It was really awesome.

I often send the children home with their own mystery bag (more on mystery bags later). During our week of Elmer, they had their very own assortment of elephants and a small spider's web to play with. We had a lot of fun.