"Efephants! Dat's so e'citing!"

That's what Isaac had to say when he found out that we would learn about elephants and then go to see some at the zoo because E is for elephants! We read about three fact filled books on elephants and three fun books with elephant characters. My favorite of all of them was Horton Hatches an Egg by Dr. Suess. I had never read this one before and it has a sweet ending. The fact-filled books about elephants were alright, but not as interesting as some of our fact books have been. They learned mostly about elephant families and uses of the elephants trunks and tusks. Our craft this week was super easy (for me especially!) because they were able to set it up and do it entirely by themselves, while I sorted laundry. They colored a picture of an elephant, cut it out, and glued it to colorful paper. Then they glued on googly eyes. Everyone loves googly eyes, and eye begins and ends with that pesky silent E that we discussed. Their only other instructions were to write their names and the letter Ee. Genna got creative and added some of our mosaic paper to the edges.

Our field trip to the zoo to see the elephants was a bit of a let down since there was only one elephant, one tiger, one lion, three orangutans...you get the picture. There just weren't enough animals to interact with each other and get active. There was lots of walking for us and little animals to show for it.

The lone Asian elephant. I was disappointed not to see an African elephant as well.

The lone lion. Apparently, you have to go online to view the momma and her cubs via webcam. I guess we could have just stayed at home on the internet, huh?

The invertebrate exhibit was great though. The kids enjoyed this the most since they could get up closer and see the animals better. The spider below was just basically in a corner hanging out with it's massive web.

The octopus was a big hit, but we missed the feeding unfortunately.

The jellyfish were fun too. The kids hang out here a while.

E is also for egg. We again read fun books about eggs and then some nonfiction books as well. My favorites were An Egg is Quiet by Dianna Aston and Guess What is Growing Inside This Egg? by Mia Posada. They were excellent and the kids learned a ton of things about different kinds of eggs. Genna's favorite was the Dogfish egg that is tubular with tendrils. Hannah's favorite were the sea turtle eggs that are round so they can fit together tightly under the sand. I love Science!

Another great week has come to a close and we are gearing up for F week. I can't believe five weeks of school have already passed!