Trunk Trouble Inspired Crafts and Activities for Kids

Welcome back to our Story Book Summer Series – This week is all about Jungle’s my second favorite place after Under the Sea, today I welcome OneMommy from There’s Just One Mommy sharing a creative craft for the book Trunk Trouble.

Hello, Rainy Day Mum readers! I’m so excited to be able to share with you today! In the blogging world, I use the nickname OneMommy. I’m a stay-at-home mom from Ohio, and this year I’m planning to homeschool both the first grader and kindergartner. I blog over at There’s Just One Mommy, where I share crafts and learning activities that we do together.

Today I’d like to share a craft and activity to go with one of our favorite jungle-themed books: Trunk Trouble by Ronne Randall and
illustrated by Jacqueline East.

Trunk Trouble is a cute story about 3 elephants who, in a hurry to get home for dinner, somehow get their trunks all tangled together! Several animals come along to help them; one of them is Seymour the snake. The kids love when I read Seymour’s part, stretching out all the “S” sounds — just the way the book has it printed. By the way, the pictures in the book are darling, too!

Since Seymour is one of their favorite characters, I decided we would make our own snakes.

Materials Need for Snake Craft:

• Paper Plates
• Markers or Crayons
• Googly Eyes
• Sliver of Red Ribbon
• Glue

Directions for Snake Craft:

Before starting the craft I cut each paper plate into a spiral, starting at the outer edge and working towards the middle. I left a circle of approximately 2 inches uncut in the center. This portion I trimmed into a triangular shape to be our snake’s head.

In the story, Seymour is decorated with a beautiful pattern. I challenged the kids to create their own pattern on their snakes, just like Seymour’s.

They had fun designing their snakes, being careful to keep the patterns going.

Once the snakes were colored we glued on googly eyes and a sliver of red ribbon for the snake’s tongue.

Hiss! Now this is MY kind of snake!

Tangled Trunk Activity:

To demonstrate to the kids just how tricky it could be to have your trunk tangled like the elephants in the story, we played our own tangled trunks game.

We started off standing in a circle. Then we all put our hands in the center and grabbed hold of another person’s hands, getting our arms tangled a bit in the process.

The trick was to get untangled without letting go! (This is loads of fun when you do it with a slightly larger group of kids!)

After a bit of turning under each other’s arms and twisting, we were soon standing in a circle once more, untangled.

Thanks again to Cerys for allowing me this opportunity to share one of our favorite books!

More Jungle Themed Activities and Crafts for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Bedtime in the Jungle Family Handprint Craft

Jungle Small World Play Inspired by Edward in the Jungle

Jungle Collage inspired by Zoe’s Jungle

Author

Cerys Parker

Cerys is a marine biologist, environmental educator, teacher, mum, and home educator from the UK. She loves getting creative, whether it is with simple and easy crafts and ideas, activities to make learning fun, or delicious recipes that you and your kids can cook together you'll find them all shared here on Rainy Day Mum.