, , ,

Elephant Activity for Preschoolers

The elephant is a large and exciting creature. There are many ways to celebrate this amazing animal, whether it’s through an educational theme or just because they’re super cute! This elephant activity for preschoolers and up will provide a FUN fine motor game for your students! Learn some fun elephant facts for kids too.

Print this adorable elephant freebie to encourage fine motor skills and counting.

How Does the Elephant Activity for Preschoolers Work?

Start with this activity by following these three steps.

  1. Sign up to download the freebie at the bottom of the post.
  2. Download and print or view the activity on your screen (use a app to mark up the screen like Kami).
  3. Practice those fine motor and visual motor skills by filling in the circles.

This type of hands on learning helps to reinforce counting skills and fine motor skills.

How to Play the Game

Each player should have an elephant to fill in the circles. If there is only one player, the child can simply fill in the circles and not play the game.

Directions for How to Use the Elephant Activity for Preschoolers

The object of the game is to be the first player to fill every circle on the elephant.

Grab one die and some magnetic chips, colored sticker dots, crayons or play dough.

Player one rolls the die. For whatever number you roll, fill in that many circles. For example, if you roll a six, put six magnetic chips, stickers, play dough balls or color in the circles.

Player two takes a turn.

Continue play until one person has filled in all the circles to become the winner of the game.Want to add in letter identification? Write letters in the circles. Place matching letter beads into the circles.

There are many other options you could use too depending upon the season to fill the circles:

  • small seashells in the Summer
  • acorns in the Fall
  • draw snowflakes in the Winter
  • pebbles in the Spring

Want More Activities Like This One?

This Do a Dot Printable Alphabet, Numbers, Lines and Shapes digital download has been updated in 2020 to include 86 black and white pages of prewriting fun! Children will love to color in the circles with dot markers, crayons, pom-poms, play dough, or paint and teachers with love the simplicity of the worksheets.  Work on prewriting lines, shapes, alphabet (upper case and lower case) and numbers.

This Do a Dot Printable Alphabet, Numbers, Lines and Shapes digital download has been updated in 2020 to include 86 black and white pages of prewriting fun!

Dot Phonics Mazes – Follow the dot path from the letter to the correct word that starts with that letter.  There are 26 mazes each on half a page.  There are also 8 different examples of how to differentiate the lesson such as using stickers, using dot markers coloring in the larger versus the smaller circles, pushing golf tees through the circles and more.  This is a great activity for push in therapy ideas or for centers.

Share Some Fun Facts About Elephants for Kids – General Info

Young children are very interested in elephants, perhaps because they are so big. Before or during game play share some interesting fun facts about elephants for kids:

  • They live in groups called herds.
  • The average elephant weighs around six tons (12,000 pounds), but only about 20% of that weight is from the elephant’s actual body! The rest is from all the plants it eats which get stuck inside its long digestive system.
  • A full grown Elephant can grow to be anywhere between 10 and 14 feet tall (4-12 feet at the shoulder).
  • Their skin is greyish brown, wrinkly and very tough – one inch is equal to about 9 layers of human skin!

Fun Facts About Elephants for Kids – Habits

  • Depending on where an elephant lives, it will spend up to 18 hours a day foraging and feeding.
  • Elephants love water, and if they’re in a hot climate, an elephant will spend about 6 hours a day cooling itself with water or mud.
  • Their thick woolly coats keep them warm even in the coldest weather, but when it gets too hot, elephants fling sand all over themselves to help cool down their bodies with the evaporating sand particles!
  • Elephants’ trunks are super strong and very flexible – they use their trunk like we use our arms and hands! They suck up lots of water into it and then blow it out again like a shower. They have more than 100 thousand muscles in their trunk, which is why it’s so strong.
  • Elephants can eat up to 330 kg (or about 740 pounds) of grass and plants every day. They don’t chew it but instead swallow it whole!
  • Elephants have a lifespan of up to 70 years in the wild and over 80 years in captivity.
  • Elephants can sometimes sleep standing up, especially when it’s really hot and there’s not much wind. African elephants will take turns sleeping at night, with one staying awake to watch out for danger while everyone else sleeps. When an elephant sleeps lying down , it takes great care to choose a safe spot – they only lay down on soft ground like grassy plains or sand along riverbanks so they can quickly get back up if something dangerous comes along.

How to Extend this Activity Even Further

If you need to extend this elephant activity for preschoolers and include more skills besides fine motor and counting, add in some pretend play. Can the kids complete the following:

  • pretend to stomp like an elephant around the room.
  • try laying down slowly and softly on the ground. Yell “DANGER” and the kids have to jump back up into standing.
  • pretend to take an elephant shower – kids can put their hands together, reach up and pretend to dump water on themselves.

Ask the children how they can act like elephants!

Download Your FREE Elephant Activity for Preschoolers

Thank you for your interest. You can download your FREE printable elephant game here.