Elmer read aloud: FREE reading resources for parents

FREE reading resources for parents

David McKee
Anderson Books
Age 3-5

This wonderful picture book was first published 25 years ago and now a modern classic. It tells the story of Elmer, a patchwork elephant living amongst a herd of ordinary elephants. He is popular, makes all the other elephants laugh and is well known in the jungle. But Elmer gets fed up with being the odd one out and decides he wants to blend in. He finds a way to look just like the other elephants. but this proves not to be such a good idea…

Share the story

Read aloud
As you read the story aloud to your child allow time to pause and talk about what is happening in the story and the pictures.

Join in
When you return to the story children might enjoy joining in with parts of it, for example the page which describes Elmer, when the jungle animals greet him or when he makes the herd jump by shouting ‘BOOO!’

Talk about the story
Things you might talk about include:

What your child likes about the book and anything they wonder about

All the colours they can see on Elmer

Why Elmer wants to change colour

Why the other elephants are so serious without him.

You could also talk about what your child knows about elephants – name parts of their body including trunk and tusk. What would they like to find out?

Tell the story
Once your child has heard the story a few times they could tell the story to you using the pictures to guide them.

Watch David McKee, Elmer’s Creator, read the story aloud 

Things to make and do

Do some counting
Count the number of elephants on some of the pages together. Which page has the most elephants? Which page has the least?

Make Elmer’s world. 

With your child helping  fill a large tray with damp soil, and collect plants leaves, grasses and twigs to place in it. If you have plastic toy animals you could place them in the tray. Perhaps you could add colour sticky squares or dots to a plastic elephant to be Elmer. Children could tell the story of Elmer or make up their own stories.

Write a message for Elmer
Use the message template and help your child write a message to Elmer from the other elephants. Talk about what they might want to say to him letting them choose their own message. Children might want to say for example that they like him just the way he is or that they find him really funny.

Design a colourful elephant
Decorate an elephant like the ones joining in the Elmer parade. If you make several you could cut them out and hang them on a string suspended across a wall or ceiling to create a line of elephants on parade. Click here for an elephant template to colour.

Make a patchwork picture Cut out coloured squares from a magazine for your child (or help them to cut out or tear their own). Arrange the coloured squares in a a patchwork design and stick on a sheet of paper.

Find out more

Find out more about elephants

You could watch part of this video together and talk about it.

Find out about animal colours
You could talk about why elephants are grey and find out about animal camouflage 

Read more books by David McKee.

Other Elmer books include:

Elmer’s Colours, Elmer’s Friends, Elmer’s Day, Elmer and the Rainbow

David McKee has also written and illustrated many other popular books; titles include:

* Not Now Bernard, Two Monsters, King Rollo, Mr Benn

* See more lovemybooks ideas 

Find out more about Elmer here and here

Parents might be interested to read some background to Elmer

in this article.

Looking for something?

Search for:

lovemybooks newsletter

Sign-up for our newsletter for updates on our brilliant books and fun activities for parents and children.

Meet our patrons

Meet our wonderful lovemybooks patrons Michael Rosen, SF Said, David Almond, Mini Grey, Julian Grenier, Myra Barrs, Jessica Souhami, Marilyn Brocklehurst, Chris Riddell, Chitra Soundar, Joseph Coelho, Imogen Russell Williams, Frank Cottrell-Boyce and Sonia Thompson

Follow us on Facebook

Follow @lovemybooksUK

Follow lovemybooksUK15

Tweets by @lovemybooksUK

About lovemybooks

With lovemybooks you will find out about wonderful books to read with your child. You will find many creative activities based on each book to make reading even more enjoyable and interactive.

Our library of read aloud books

book list

try a book

Book List

Sort by…

Keyword/Filter. ..

Kangaroos Have Joeys
by Stella Blackstone

Bear in a Square
by Stella Blackstone

A Dark, Dark Tale
by Ruth Brown

Ten Black Dots
by Donald Crews

Baby Duck and the Bad Eyeglasses
by Amy Hest

Say Hello
by Jack Foreman

The Three Billy Goats Gruff
by Mary Finch

Pete’s a Pizza
by William Steig

If the Dinosaurs Came Back
by Bernard Most

Whatever Happened to the Dinosaurs?
by Bernard Most

Pet Show!
by Ezra Jack Keats

Where’s My Teddy?
by Jez Alborough

While We Were Out
by Ho Baek Lee

Red Is Best
by Kathy Stinson

Froggy Plays Soccer
by Jonathan London

Hi, Cat!
by Ezra Jack Keats

Peter’s Chair
by Ezra Jack Keats

Mouse Paint
by Ellen Stoll Walsh

Owl Babies
by Martin Waddell

The Snowy Day
by Ezra Jack Keats

Busy Trucks on the Go
by Eric Ode

I Love You, Blue Kangaroo!
by Emma Chichester Clark

The Costume Party
by Victoria Chess

Zelda and Ivy: The Runaways
by Laura McGee Kvasnosky

In November
by Cynthia Rylant

A House Is a House for Me
by Mary Ann Hoberman

Rattletrap Car
by Phyllis Root

We All Went on Safari
by Laurie Krebs

Bear on a Bike
by Stella Blackstone

Crow Boy
by Taro Yashima

The Ugly Vegetables
by Grace Lin

How I Became a Pirate
by Melinda Long

Animally
by Lynne Parish Sutton

Looking Out for Sarah
by Glenna Lang

Jamaica Louise James
by Amy Hest

Whistle for Willie
by Ezra Jack Keats

Rabbit Food
by Susanna Gretz

The Emperor’s Egg
by Martin Jenkins

Sidney Won’t Swim
by Hilde Schuurmans

Bilby Moon
by Margaret Spurling

The Wedding
by Eve Bunting

Fox
by Margaret Wild

Stellaluna
by Janell Cannon

Kiss the Cow!
by Phyllis Root

Tibili
by Marie Léonard

Winter Trees
by Carole Gerber

It Jes’ Happened
by Don Tate

Sebastian’s Roller Skates
by Joan de Deu Prats

This Is the Tree
by Miriam Moss

Grandfather’s Journey
by Allen Say

I’ll Protect You From the Jungle Beasts
by Martha Alexander

Epossumondas
by Coleen Salley

Little Melba and Her Big Trombone
by Katheryn Russell-Brown

The Seven Silly Eaters
by Mary Ann Hoberman

Sleepytime Rhyme
by Remy Charlip

The Little Red Hen and the Ear of Wheat
by Mary Finch

Where the Winds Meet
by Mi-hwa Joo

Ladybugs Can’t be Tall
by Kevin Hill

Elmer and the Lost Teddy
by David McKee

Benny’s Brigade
by Arthur Bradford

Beetle Bop
by Denise Fleming

Singing Shijimi Clams
by Naomi Kojima

Song of the Mekong River
by Na-mi Choi

Fiesta
by Sherry Shahan

Roadwork
by Sally Sutton

The House in the Night
by Susan Marie Swanson

The Line Up Book
by Marisabina Russo

I Took the Moon for a Walk
by Carolyn Curtis

The Quiet Book
by Deborah Underwood

Zelda and Ivy and the Boy Next Door
by Laura McGee Kvasnosky

Waiting for Winter
by Sebastian Meschenmoser

Gracie the Lighthouse Cat
by Ruth Brown

New Clothes for New Year’s Day
by Hyun-Ju Bae

If I Never Forever Endeavor
by Holly Meade

Seasons
by Anne Crausaz

Oliver
by Birgitta Sif

In the Sea
by David Elliott

Dad’s Favorite Cookie
by Gu-mi Jeong

Where Are You, Sun Bear?
by Eun-mi Choi

The Day Louis Got Eaten
by John Fardell

Rita’s Rhino
by Tony Ross

Black Beauty
by Anna Sewell

Elusive Moose
by Joan Gannij

Why Do Camels Have Long Eyelashes?
by Jennifer Shand

Lucia’s Travel Bus
by Nam-joong Kim

I Saw a Bee
by Rob Ramsden

Bring Me Some Apples and I’ll Make You a Pie
by Robbin Gourley

Let’s Be Friends
by Seo Yun Choi

The Big Sneeze
by Ruth Brown

subscribe now

>

90,000 Books about a checkered elephant named Elmer.

I confess that this four-volume book turned my idea of ​​what kind of books children love. We, parents, strive to give our kids something more serious, with deep meaning and far-reaching overtones. Actually, we palm off what we ourselves like, without making allowances for age, vocabulary, lack of physiological ability to withstand the pace we set for an hour and a half continuously, etc.

Once again I am grateful to Tanya Belkina – it was she who insisted that “Elmer” appear in our home library. “Elmer” seemed to me at first too … simple.

But children are the best censors. To say that the book “went with a bang” is an understatement. My daughter loved it (3 years 9 months). Having removed the protective film from the first volume, I doubtfully looked at the remaining three – will they come in handy? Helpful, and how!

I started reading lazily, without enthusiasm. But my idea of ​​the value of the text changed with every word spoken aloud.

Seeing how the child is fascinated by the plot, with what passion he counts the cells on Elmer (they also came up with an elephant in a cage!), How he lists the animals he met on the way, looks at the elephants (thin, fat, laughing, serious, old and young ), seeing the genuine childish interest and the attention to detail that suddenly appeared, I realized that I had fundamentally chosen the wrong books before. Alice in Wonderland, Pippi Longstocking, Carlson are all interesting and very good books… for me.

“Elmer” is designed for kids. Colorful illustrations, little text, funny story.

Every volume we do something interesting. In the first two ( “Elmer” and “Elmer Again” ) we study the drawings of elephants decorated in different patterns, count the cells (for example, count how many green cells are on Elmer).

In the third volume ( “Elmer and Wilbur” ) we count blue birds (they are present on almost every spread).

In the fourth volume ( “Elmer and the Lost Bear” ) we are looking for a bear in the pictures. Everyone has a teddy bear – tiger cubs, lion cubs, monkeys, giraffes, baby zebras, hippos, bunnies, and even Elmer himself. Elmer’s teddy bear, of course, in a box.

But the baby elephant lost his bear at the picnic and is crying bitterly.

How to make a checkered elephant out of plasticine?

Elmer is not greedy, he lends his checkered bear cub to the baby elephant for temporary use and goes in search of the missing toy.

As a result, Elmer and Wilbur find the missing bear and return it to the little owner.

Abstract:

Kind, non-aggressive texts, colorful illustrations, and a cheerful plot make Elmer a very attractive read for children aged 2-4.

Text and photo: Elena Khapova

How to make Elmer, the checkered elephant, out of plasticine
The Little Red Riding Hood book with a walking game inside
Stung Snake – unusual poems for children
Making walks fun – Finders
Zoki and Bada – a book for motivated children
Sasha and Masha – short stories to read with children

(1)(0)

Share on WhatsApp

book series – The City, 05/29/2020

In addition to the iconic Wizard of Oz and Harry Potter, there are many other wonderful book series that are a pleasure to read and reread (sometimes endlessly!) To children at night. We chose ten (with pictures, of course) – for ages from birth to seven years. It is important that each story from all the listed series is absolutely self-sufficient, it is not necessary to collect the entire collection.

Checkered Elephant Elmer

Samokat Publishing

Elmer, a colorful checkered elephant created by English artist David McKee, is definitely a favorite of the very first book series. You can easily start looking at colorful pictures on cardboard pages as early as a year old: learn colors, animal names, weather phenomena and daily routine from them. Using larger format books later, it’s great to learn to read. The plots are simple, the animals in the jungle live kindly, a great inventor and the main ringleader Elmer comes up with a variety of adventures: either he teaches to play snowballs, or to walk on stilts. And of course, he is always ready to help: he will find the lost toy for the baby, and clear the blockage of stones in the riverbed.

“Chick and Bricks”

Clever publishing house

A bright series for toddlers – large pictures, quite interesting details, a minimum of words, short phrases, understandable in two years; plots: how to build a snowman and quarrel, and then make peace; how to come to visit with an overnight stay without a favorite toy, to lament, but still fall asleep; how, after playing, inadvertently make a puddle on the floor and eliminate the consequences, and many more issues that are relevant for kids. The leading roles are invariably two friends: Chick the rabbit and Briki the mouse, always ready to support each other. They were invented by the German artist Axel Scheffler (by the way, he also painted the gruffalo monster beloved by many). Be prepared for the fact that the story of the blue monster will have to be read aloud more than a dozen times.

“Ernest and Celestina”

“Melik-Pashaev” publishing house

There is a wonderful full-length cartoon and a large detailed book about the beginning of the friendship between Ernest the bear and Celestina the mouse. True, there are no pictures in that book (and it will definitely be more interesting to read it closer to school age) – the story was written by the Frenchman Daniel Pennac in memory of his own friendship with the Belgian artist Gabrielle Vincent after her death. Gabrielle (actually Monique Martin, because a pseudonym is indicated in the books), for two decades she drew picture books about Ernest and Celestine for children two to four years old, and the main thing in them is not words at all, but magical watercolor illustrations. The most delicate drawings by Vincent convey all shades of emotions of bosom friends: from fear and resentment to delight and love. The minimum of words in the book is expanded with the help of watercolors to the size of the entire universe.

“Karlchen”

Melik-Pashaev Publishing House

Stories about the hare Karlchen is one of the most famous children’s series by the German artist Rotraut Susanne Berner. For kids, separate detailed books with cardboard pages have been published: Karlchen hides from his grandmother, plays football, waits for the New Year and gifts, meets his newborn younger sister, goes to bed on the “slipper train” (in the piggy bank of parental life hacks). Toddlers are great collections of short stories “Karlchen Grows” and “Karlchen Stubborn”, each of which is one in one of our ordinary lives. It remains only to grow in the daily routine the same Zen as that of a hare mother, in order to calmly respond to her child when she is carried away down the street without shoes or even lies down on the ground and says that she will not go anywhere else.

The Strawberry Fairy

Willy Winki Publishing House

Drunken reading for lovers of princesses, fairies and other magic wands – books about the Strawberry Fairy, written and illustrated by the German Stefanie Dahl. Charming drawings in watercolor technique and plots consistent with pictures: simple and understandable, kind and cozy, ideal for reading at night. Strawberry lives in a teapot in the Sunny Forest, monitors the ripeness of the berries in her garden and, of course, does many good deeds when necessary: ​​she prepares cold candies for frogs, helps a bat find friends, organizes a slugs attraction, and even somehow in winter, she saves three sacred beetles from starvation, which give her three magical berries in gratitude.

“Mulle Mek – a skillful person”

“Melik-Pashaev” publishing house

Georg Johanson’s encyclopedia for boys and their mothers. The gender difference in interests is already noticeable by the age of two, and if the varieties of dinosaurs should be studied by the parents of both boys and girls, then by the age of three the roads often diverge: young ladies are drawn to fairies, gentlemen to technology and mechanics. From the series about the Swedish master Mulla Mek and his faithful dog Buffa, attentive readers will find out why a car needs bridges and cylinders, a propeller and landing gear for an airplane, where the boat has feed and frames, how pliers differ from pliers, and bolts from screws. All with bright visual illustrations by the artist Jens Album – scientific, informative and useful.

“Once upon a time there were rabbits”

Machaon Publishing House

The French writer Genevieve Yurier wrote two dozen stories about the rabbits of Papa Onestus – four sons and a daughter. The “rabbits” live with their father and aunt (there is usually not a word about mother, but in one of the books it turns out that she died at the hands of a hunter) and, of course, as always happens in large families, they spend a lot of time together: they play, play pranks, travel, draw, dance, play music. The main hit is an action-packed story about burnt donuts and a big fire: both scary and instructive. In the illustrations, Joannigo Loïc has drawn a million details in the Wimmelbuch tradition. For example, tiny mice live their lives in the pictures: they are not in the main plot, but there are plenty of them on every page, and everyone is busy with extremely important things.

Petson and Findus

White Crow Publishing House

Petson is an unsociable but cheerful old man who lives on a farm in a small Swedish village in the company of a hooligan kitten named Findus. A dozen stories about this couple were written by the Swedish writer Sven Nordqvist, who also drew pictures for the books. Petson comes up with new amazing inventions, Findus jumps around and invariably cheers up the old man. They drink coffee, eat meatballs, fish, communicate with their chickens and sometimes with neighbors, celebrate Christmas and the cat’s birthdays – three times a year. In the illustrations, myukles invisible to Petson live their lives and in general, a lot of details and really funny jokes are drawn. Cartoons and films have been made based on books, and in Moscow, the Fanny Bell House children’s theater shows performances.

“Commissioner Gordon”

Samokat Publishing House

You can easily start reading detective stories from preschool age – if they are adapted and not bloodthirsty, fascinating and kind. The series about Commissioner Gordon’s wise toad and his mouse assistant Zhabi was created by the Swedish writer Ulf Nilson and illustrated by the Dutch artist Gitta Spe. Four books – four cases to be revealed according to all the laws of the genre. And if after the cartoon “Zootopia” the child has not yet wandered into the police, then there will no longer be any chance. The benefit of plots for games after reading, you can come up with an uncountable number: draw maps, sit in ambush, hunt down criminals, look for traces. In the summer in the country, you can do this all day long.

“Baby Nicolas”

Machaon Publishing House

School life usually attracts children before first-graders pick up a real primer, so you can read for sure from the age of six. The Frenchman Nicolas could well have made friends with Deniska from Dragunsky’s stories, and with Kolka and Mishka from Nosov’s books. The illustrations are cult – it was from the drawings of the artist Jean-Jacques Sempe that this series began in the 50s of the last century: René Goscinny decided to write texts for the pictures. True, in the collections they are black and white, but it will not be difficult for fans of the animated series (“Hi, I’m Nicola!”) To add colors – in fantasies or with pencils, as parents will allow it.