Archive for June 27th, 2010
One Elephant Went Out to Play
Posted on: June 27, 2010
Preparing to sing at a birthday party, I asked the child’s mom if the birthday boy had any requests.
The mom said that her son loves elephants!
I found a delightful HUGE book that will be so fun to share!
One Elephant Went Out to Play (Classic Books with Holes)
Traditional Words and Tune (Sing to the tune of “5 little Ducks”)
Illustrated by Sanja Rescek
(This book features a printing of the song’s simple melody, a paragraph on the helpful use of this type of book for emergent readers, and a page of activity ideas using the book and song)
Child’s Play probalby publishes a nubmer of editions of this book, but the one that arrived from Amazon.com is 17 X 17 inches! The kids will LOVE it so long as I can figure out how to turn the pages!
Searching around for the tune, I discovered that it is the same tune (with slighly altered rhythm to accomodate the lyrics) as “Five Little Ducks.”
A karaoke sing-along track for “Five Little Ducks” (which works great for “One Elephant Went Out to Play,” too), here:
http://www.amazon.com/Five-Little-Ducks/dp/B0031GUV8Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1277563153&sr=8-1
Here’s a link that has the lyrics, a video, and interactive game ideas for the “One Elephant Went Out to Play”:
http://thekittycats.wordpress.com/category/titles/o/one-elephant-went-out-to-play-o-titles/
Click here for downloadable cards/images for teaching numbers using this song:
http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/1011-1015/sb1014.html
One Elephant Went Out to Play
Traditional Words and Tune
ONE elephant went out to play
Upon a spider’s web one day.
He had such enormous fun,
That he called for another elephant to come!
For the rest of the song replace the number “ONE” with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 in order.
Exact words will vary, but this is the general idea.
How to use this book
Some interesting educational information is printed on the inside cover of “One Elephant Went Out to Play,”
“Young children learn to enjoy books most when parents, nursery nurses, education assistants or Early Years teachers spend time talking about the pictures and the things that happen in a story. They develop a keen interest in reading and a knowledge about words and grammar when they listen to traditional rhymes, actions songs and stories that use rhythmic and pattered language. ‘One Elephant Went Out to Play’ has all these qualities that help to promote language and literacy development. Read and re-read it, over and over again with the children, so they come to know it very well.”
Dr. Hilary Minns
Institute of Education, University of Warwick
