We had a such a wonderful time learning and exploring the uniqueness of the rainforest! The week began with reading books about the rainforest, showing pictures and watching videos to enhance our understanding of the rainforest and the animals that live there. The hippos began making a rainforest out of our arch by painting trees, cutting out leaves to add to the trees and making vines by scrunching paper. The students also added materials to a diorama showing the 4 layers of the rainforest. After the diorama was completed we brought in the little rainforest animals for pretend play! Our arch contained rainforest animals, an animal rainforest hunt, binoculars, and a view finder showing rainforest animals. All of these activities provided opportunities to share, take turns, make decisions, answer and ask questions, create, work on fine motor, and build community.
During center time this week, we made parrots and tree frogs. The students sorted farm and rainforest animals and also made trees with buttons and pipe cleaners! Our sensory table contained coffee grounds, lizards, frogs and scoopers. Coffee comes from the rainforest and so does chocolate. At the playdoh table we used broccoli stalks to represent tall trees in the rainforest. The students placed rainforest animals under and on the trees. In addition, the hippos counted frogs to the correct number on the lily pads in water and made jaguars out of the letter J. In gym class we did rainforest animal yoga! (learning goals this week: answering questions, fine and gross motor, making decisions independently, taking turns, participating as a member of a group, following 2 step directions, sensory, respectful behavior, counting, number recognition, comparing numbers, letter X and J, rhyming, sorting)
During 2nd Steps, we worked on ways to tell a person about a problem and then figuring out how to solve the problem. First, we have to calm down, then figure out the problem and then think of a solution. The students came up with solutions involving sharing, taking turns, and playing together.
Books We Read:
Rainforest
Red Eyed Tree Frog
Flashy Frogs
Way Up High In a Tall Green Tree
Questions
1. When do jaguars sleep, at night or during the day? (during the day)
2. Where does coffee come from? ( the rainforest)
3. Do you want to visit the rainforest?
4. When do tree frogs sleep, during the night or during the day? (during the day)
5. How many layers are in the rainforest? (4)
6. What is the weather like in the rainforest? (very rainy)
7. Name an animal in the rainforest. (sloth, howler monkey, jaguar, leaf cutter ants, frogs, lizards, snakes, toucans, parrots, lemur, butterflies, orangutang, to name a few)
Things to Do at Home
Find out more information about the rainforest through books, pictures and the internet.
Next Week:
More Rainforest!
Dates To Remember:
Spring Fair-4/26 3:00-5:00 at LECC
Mom's Night Out-5/1 6:00-8:00 48 Briarcliff
Last day of school party- Thursday, May 29th-More details to come!
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| Garden fun!! |
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| We looked for rainforest animals in this picture. |
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| I spy...... |
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| We made a jaguar out of the letter J. |
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It was fun to mix blue and yellow to make green as we painted
the earth during art class. |
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| Rainforest yoga-butterfly pose |
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| Cobra |
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| It was fun to decorate lizards. |
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| We made the rainforest with trees (broccoli), playdoh and rainforest animals. |
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We showed pictures of vines in the rainforest and made vines
for our rainforest arch. |
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After learning about tree frogs in the rainfores,
we made our very own. |
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Our rainforest explorers! We have a variety
of stuffed rainforest animals for pretending. |
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| We cut out the jaguars face. |
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| Show and Tell |
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| Show and Tell |
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| Show and Tell |
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We first colored the feet of the tree frog before painting the body. |
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| Music fun with scarves! |
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| We matched the correct number of frogs to the lily pads. |
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We made a diorama to show the 4 layers of the rainforest.
The students then played with the rainforest animals. |
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| It was fun to make frogs jump with our fingers. |
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| We played a positional concept game with little tree frogs. |
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| The hippo made pictures with rainforest animals at the writing center. |
