Elmer

Elmer

By David McKee

Genre: Fiction

Grade: pre-kindergarten to second

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About The Author

Mckee was born in South Devon, where he then went to Plymouth Art College. He got his start in college where he started selling his cartoons to news papers. McKee has illustrated many children's books along with creating his popular Elmer Series. Having his first book published in 1964, he is now one of the leading contemporary children's book creators. Click the link about to learn more and see some of McKee's works. 

About The Book

The book begins with a herd of elephants who are 'normal' looking! Except there is one elephant who stands out, and that is Elmer! Elmer is a patch work of colors, and keeps everyone happy and smiling. However, Elmer feels different because he is not like the rest, so he paints himself grey. Soon Elmer finds out that no one knows who he is, and that he is no longer a special individual. When it rains the paint watches off and happiness comes back to the herd of elephants as they laugh over Elmer scaring everyone. They day is remembered and celebrated, and all of the elephants pants themselves different colors. 

The book does a great job of showing readers that it is ok to be different. Being different is a good thing and is something to be celebrated. If we were all the same life would be rather boring. 

Lesson

Purpose: To teach Character education. Students will learn to except and respect everyones differences and explain why this is important. Students will also understand the purpose or moral of this story  and what that means. 

Pre-assessment: Discussion, ask questions such as, what does respect mean? Why is it important to be different? and why do we need to respectful others? Then ask student, what do I mean when I say the moral of this story is.....

Lesson:  After the book has been read a discussion needs to take place. Why do all the elephants like elmer, and how does he feel about being different? How do you know this?  Discuss what moral of the story means. Then ask students,  what is the moral of Elmer? When done have students turn to a partner and summarize what we just discussed. Then have students make their own Elmer, they paint it anyway they want. Once done put all of the Elmer's together and talk about why it is important to respect our differences. 

Post assessment: Students can fill out a short response about the  moral of the Elmer's story.