Asian or African Elephant?

Today we looked at the differences between the Asian and the African Elephant. I gave the boys cards with the features of each type of elephant on them to sort by looking at a drawing of the two types of elephants. They have differences in their backs, trunks, ears and tusks. I challenged them, when we go on our field trip, to figure out what type of elephant is at the zoo before they read the sign.

Measuring Elephants

Large measurements are hard for children to really conceive. To give the boys a real feel for the size of elephants and give them some hands-on math experiences, we worked on measuring activities with elephants. I supplied the boys with a sketch of a newborn elephant's (actual size) footprint. You can make one yourself by making a circle that is 18 inches in circumference for the baby, and about 48 inches for the adult mother.

You can use poker chips to fill in the footprint. It would cut out a step if we had used 1-inch circular counters, but the larger chips are easier for smaller hands (such as Quentin's) to work with. The chips are (roughly) twice the size of the 1-inch counters, so we had to double the amount of chips we used to get an accurate measurement of area. The footprint held 12 chips, so doubling that, we determined that the area of an infant elephant's foot is 24 inches.

Did you know that you can also use the footprint to determine the elephant's height! You take the circumference of the footprint and multiply this by 2 and that is the approximate height of the elephant at the shoulder. We used string and wrapped it around the footprint twice and used this to see how high the elephant would be. The baby would be just about as high as Quentin (about 3 feet)!

I then gave them the information that the area of a mother elephant's footprint is about 86 inches. They divided that number in half and put out 43 counters so that they could sketch out the size of the mother's footprint. Then, using the sketch, they wrapped a string around the circumference of the footprint twice and then had a string that is as tall as a mother elephant is at the shoulder -about as high as our door frame!

The boys became very interested in measuring the area of all sorts of things, to compare with the elephant. Quentin had the idea of measuring his own footprint, so we traced his foot and he filled it with the chips. He was surprised to find that it used only 9 chips!

sources:

• Elephants GEMS guide

Elephants and Water

Today we studied how elephants use water. You will often find elephants around the waterhole. We made a simulated waterhole in a dishpan.
Squirting Water to Cool Off and Take Baths
The boys used pipettes to squirt water, simulating how elephants use their trunks to suck up and squirt water.
Digging For Water
Elephants also use their tusks to dig for water during times of drought.
Mud Baths
Mud serves as a sunscreen/insect repellant to protect the elephant's skin.

Elephant Tusks

We were surprised to find out how large elephant tusks are! Did you know that the adult female elephant tusk can be up to 5 feet long and the adult male's tusk can be 8 feet long! To help them visualize these measurements, Katie sketched out a 5-foot and an 8-foot tusk for the boys and we hung it on the wall. (I know it is really hard to see the pencil lines in the photos, but the tusks pretty much filled the whole sheets of paper.) They even got Dad to measure himself against the 8-foot tusk, which had to overlap onto the ceiling!

We talked about what the elephant uses his tusks for; besides protection from enemies and aggression with other elephants, they mainly use their tusks for food gathering. They use their tusks to strip bark off trees to get to the soft layer underneath to eat. They also use their tusks to dig up tree roots to eat. The boys tried out some Popsicle stick tusks on some bark in our backyard just to see how tough a job it can be.

Crocodilians & Elephants at the Waterhole

We looked at Crocodilians, comparing and contrasting the alligator and the crocodile. They both are reptiles with scaly skin in the same Order. The scales on the crocodile, however, have a dot in the middle of each scale. We discovered that the easiest way to tell the difference between them is to look at their snouts. When they are closed, if you can still see teeth poking out then they are crocodiles; no teeth showing means that they are alligators. Alligators have U-shaped snouts and crocodile's snouts are more V-shaped. Alligators usually live in fresh water and crocodiles usually live in salt water. The boys colored pictures of alligators and added them to their zoo, which already had a crocodile.

Next we looked at the elephant's ears. These large features of the elephant are used for swatting insects and for fanning the air on hot days. They are also used for defense, making the elephant look larger and more fierce. The boys made elephant ears and enjoyed pretending to drink at the waterhole.

Then the Crocodilian came up out of the water....

the boys made themselves look sufficiently fierce!

How Does an Elephant use it's Trunk?

The boys narrate what they have learned about how elephants use their trunks.