Re the elephants: I learned this in church camp as a kid:
One elephant came out to play On a spider's web one day He had such enormous fun That he called for another elephant to come.
Then it goes on to two elephants and so one.
(I'll post the tune if anyone's interested)
At the end of the first verse, the song leader would pick someone from the campfire circle to be the second elephant and they would make an "elephant chain": the leader with one arm held out like an elephant's trunk and the other between his legs as a tail, which the second elephant would grasp with HIS "trunk".
At the end of each verse the last elephant got to choose a new elephant to join the line and the elephant chain would slowly make its way through the campfire circle, growing all the time. We could usually make it last through 8-10 elephants before it got boring.