Play Dough Craft for Strictly No Elephants

Today we're joining the Book + Craft Ideas Week to share another fun book extension activity. The picture book Strictly No Elephants is a charming story about friendship, fitting in, and embracing differences.

The story, written by Lisa Mantchev and illustrated by Taeeun Yoo, tells of a little boy with a "tiny elephant for a pet."  My favorite scene shows the boy carrying the tiny-but-still-large elephant over a sidewalk crack that it's afraid of because,

"That's what friends do: lift each other over the cracks."




The boy finds that he and his elephant aren't welcome at Pet Club Day - a sign on the door says "Strictly No Elephants."

They turn around and the little pet elephant leads the way, right over the sidewalk cracks because, 

"That's what friends do: brave the scary things for you."


Isn't that beautiful!

The story continues, and they befriend other children with unusual pets: a skunk, a giraffe, a hedgehog, penguin, narwhal, bat, armadillo, and more. In the end, they start their own club, where everyone is welcome.

Book Extension Activity -- Play Dough Craft

I was trying to think of a craft for this story, and I remembered all the simple animals my girls were drawing last year. They all had an oval as the foundation.

Then I got out the play dough.

It turns out it's really easy to make flat play dough animals. Much easier than fully 3-D ones.

You roll a ball, then roll the ball into a bit of a log shape. Then you press that flat into an oval. Add bits for legs, head, tail, ears, and if it's an elephant -- a trunk!

This turned out to be a good way to use up the mystery color play dough you get when lots of colors get mixed together.

You can also make other animals this way. We made a giraffe and a skunk. 

The finishing touch was my crafting favorite - googly eyes!

This was all a fun way to remember a sweet story of friendship. Strictly No Elephants is quickly on its way to becoming one of our favorites.