Hey Elephant is one of my favorite songs to sing with Toddlers and Preschoolers. They love animals and silliness and this one is full of both.

As a bonus, counting songs like Hey Elephant offer young children an opportunity to practice counting with one to one correspondence in a fun way.

Below are directions for preparing your own visuals and lyrics with hand motions to one of our favorite animal songs.

Set Up:

Prepare elephants visuals.
Cut out photos of 5 elephants.
Cover in contact paper and cut them out again.
If you have a felt board, attach velcro to the back.

How to Sing This Song with Kids:

Sing the song together. You can use the visuals in a few different ways.
1. Hand an elephant out to each child (or a few out to each kid) and have them put them on the felt board as you add an elephant to the song. If you don’t have a felt board, feel free to lay them in the middle of a table or draw a spider web on a piece of paper.
2. Hand out elephants and then have them passed back to you as you add elephants so you can count together.
3. Start with the adult holding all of the elephants. Hand one out as you add them and then count them as each child holds up their elephant.

Song Lyrics:

One Elephant went out to play (use fingers to show how many elephants)
Out on a spider’s web one day (bounce finger up and down)
He had such ENORMOUS fun (spread arms out wide)
That he called for another elephant to come
Hey Elephant….. (cup mouth and call this out loudly. Then pat hands on lap to imitate an elephant running over to join)

Two Elephants…
Three Elephants…
Four Elephants…

Five Elephants went out to play
Out on a spider’s web one day
They had such ENORMOUS fun
It broke! Oh no!

When You’re Done:

Store elephants in a basket near the felt board for independent use or in a ziploc bag for later use.

Download FREE Hey Elephant Visuals