Elephant study using Elephants Can Paint Too!

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Little BBQ chose the book Elephants can Paint Too! by Katya Arnold at the library. I decided to turn this short and easy nonfiction book into a small unit study for him. Elephants can Paint Too! is appropriate for early elementary school students. The book will capture the imagination of young children as the elephants in the book learn how to paint just like humans. The book has lots of elephant facts spaced through out the book without reading like a dry textbook. For our small unit study I read the book to Little BBQ first just to enjoy the book. I did not stress the facts sprinkled in the book. I just let him enjoy the book. Then, we visited the web-site, The Asian Elephant Art and Conservation Project, that the book was benefiting. The conservation project helps rescue Asian elephants that are on the endangered species list. We read the profiles of various elephants in the project, and we admired their paintings. To teach Little BBQ computer skills we copied some of the pictures on our computer, and I taught him how to make layers on GIMP (a free version of photoshop.) I have chosen not to include this photo on this post because the elephant painting images are copyrighted.

We also watched videos of the elephants painting. Next, Little BBQ mimicked elephant paintings.

Then, Little BBQ reread the book to me and he dictated to me the facts in the book while I wrote them down on a piece of paper.

Finally, we found the locations of all of the Asian elephants on a globe and colored a map of Asia where the elephants were located.