Rainforests/Jungle *Terrariums are easy to make from plastic soda or water bottles. Have everyone bring a bottle with the label off. Cut bottle in half. Put pebbles and potting soil in the bottom half. Plant some small plants and water it sparingly. Use the top half with the cap on as the lid. Cut 4 1" places on the cut edge of the lid so as to allow it to fit over the bottom planted part. The plants will then water thenselves from condensation on the inside of the bottle. They last a long time without care. You add a ceramic rainforest animal. *Play a tape of rainforest sounds----the rainforest is never quiet. *Make newspaper trees by taking 3 sheets of newspaper and roll them up overlapping as you go. Tape the bottom. Cut about 4 or 6 slashes 1/3 of the way down the top. Gently pull up on one of the inside "leaves" and then you have a paper tree. *Get a book on indigenous people of the rainforest and face paint the children to look like the tribal people. Then string beads for tribal necklaces. *Make rainforest collages from rainforest products------coffee, sugar, tea. * Our class is working on "The Jungle". Yesterday we decorated our toilet paper binaculars and went on a Safari. I hid animals all over and we pretended to put on our backbacks, hats etc. Then we stopped in the middle cause it was so hot and had a pretend drink of water and put on our sunscreen. *A few good books: The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry Rainforest Nature Search by Sterry and Robinson Exotic Rainforests by Anita Ganeri Here Is the Tropical Rain Forest by Madeleine Dunphy At Home in the Rainforest by Diane Willow How Green Are You? by David Bellamy *If you decorate the room to look like a rainforest, you could use some steam vaporizers. This will enable the children to understand more about the type of weather that is found in the rainforest. *draw and color a picture of a rainforest. As they finished, they dictated a few words to me about their pictures. I compiled the papers into a classbook. I'm using it as my pre-assessment of their "rainforestness" . Tomorrow, I'll be talking to the children about the four levels of a rainforest. The emergent level is the top level of the rainforest. The canopy is the next layer where monkeys, apes and exotic plants live. The canopy is like living under a big green umbrella. The understory is the next layer. It is the home of bats, frogs, butterflies and many other animals. Finally is the forest floor. It's dark on the rainforest floor because the trees keep most of thelight out. *As a class activity, the children will be dipping their palms in green paint to make palm prints covering several large sheets of paper. Once dry, these will serve as a background for our class rainforest. As we learn about the rainforest we will add food, plants, and animals to our mural. *I'm working on an idea for paper plants that we can hang from our ceiling. *In an effort to visually inspire students about the animals of the rainforest,students will construct a variety of simple puppets. The butterfly can be made out of paper cut into a butterfly shape>Fold paper in 1/2 & cut out shape.On the fold staple a straw for the child to hold . * The frogs can be made by cutting out simple frog shapes & gluing a stick or staple a straw to the frog. The toucans can be done like the frogs using a bird shape.You might try cutting 2 beaks & using 2 brass brads so that that can move.Experiment. * THREE TALKING TOUCANS THREE TALKING TOUCANS SITTING IN A TREE THE FIRST ONE TURNED & SQUAWKED AT ME! THREE LIITTLE TOUCANS SITTING IN A ROW THE SECOND ONE SAID"I FLAP MY WINGS,WATCH ME GO!" THREE LITTLE TOUCANS SITTING SIDE BY SIDE THE THIRD ONE SAID"MY BRIGHT BEAK,I OPEN WIDE!" THREE FROLICKING RED EYED TREE FROGS THREE LITTLE FROGS SITTING IN A TREE THE FIRST ONE TURNED & JUMPED TOWARDS ME! THREE LITTLE LITTLE FROGS HOPPING ALL ABOUT THE SECOND ONE SAID "AT NIGHT'S WHEN I COME OUT!" THREE LITTLE FROGS LEAPING TREE TO TREE THE THIRD ONE SAID"HEY,WAIT FOR ME! THE MIGHTY MORPHO BUTTERFLIES THREE MORPHO BUTTERFLIES GLIDING THROUGH THE TREES THE FIRST ONE SWOOPED TO TAKE A LOOK AT ME! THREE MORPHO BUTTERFLIES SITTING ON A LEAF THE SECOND ONE WAS TRYING TO EAT SOMETHING SWEET! THREE MORPHO BUTTERFLIES FLITTING ALL ABOUT THE THIRD ONE LANDED ON MY SNOUT! My kids love to act out the these verses.I pick 3 children & as I read they do what the verse states.I will continue until all the children have had a turn.This works well w/any verse that has a numerals in it. *We did a frog's day today and my kids really loved a craft that we made (definately a craft not an art project but fun). We took corks and colored them green with crayon. Then we took a green pipe cleaner and wrapped it around the cork, twisted it, then bent the long ends into frog shaped legs. A string that had been tied to the pipe cleaner can be used to pull the floatable frog through water. Sheesh, such a simple thing and the kids played with them all day! I'm sure they were in some bathtubs tonight. *I recently came accross this web page that I thought could spark a little interest for the rain forest theme. http//haskell.cs.yale.edu/sjl/froggy/origami/origami.html *Here's a great site for rainforest info.Just click on the BLUE. Kids' Action (Keyword to: http://www.ran.org/ran/kids_action/index.html) *Jungle Animal Centerpiece (Edible) Pick an apple that will stand up by itself nicely. Cut the apple in half, horizontally. Place the two cut ends in a little lemon juice, to retard browning). Cut a plastic straw into 3 equal pieces. Pick 3 jungle animals from a pkg. of animal crackers. Place the straws into the bottom half of an apple evenly. Attach each animal cracker with a dot of peanut butter. Press top half of apple into bottom half of apple. Instant animal carousel. * I also change my room into a jungle for the unit. I put up pictures of jungle animals around the room, the house centre is changed into a library with books about jungle animals. I also hang leaves (cut out of large green construction paper) and vines (large green construction paper cut out in a spiral pattern) from the ceiling. From the vines I hang construction paper monkeys and bananas. I usually do this after the children leave so when they come in the next day they find their room has turned into a jungle. To go along with this I read the book, "Where the Wild Things Are". * After taking about what animals live in the jungle, I ask the children to draw and cut out three or more animals that live in the jungle. We make binoculars out of toilet paper rolls. When the children are not there, I tape the pictures out in the hall and then we go out on a safari. The children are to find the pictures that belong to them. *Animal Cracker Art is a great project and requires very little prep time. Supplies needed: * Light Blue Construction paper * Animal Crackers * Glue * Crayons or markers (Crayons work better) Give each child a sheet of light blue construction paper and let them create a scene for their animal crackers to appear in. (They have a much easier time if you prepare an example for them to look at). After each child has completed their scene just glue the animal crackers to their picture. This is a great project for the children to do,and we finished off the box of Animal Crackers when we completed the project. *TAKE A WALK IN THE RAINFOREST There are four levels of the rainforest.Let's take a walk & see. The Emergent Level of the rainforest is the tops of the tallest trees. Vultures,Mosquitoes,flying Geckos Glide on skin from head to toe Harpy eagles almost four feet tall Look around 'cause that's not all There are four levels of the rainforest.Let's take a walk & see. If we could bend way back & look up high,we'd see the Canopy. Fruit Bats,Toucans Parakeets too And Howler Monkeys,to name a few It looks like broccoli we would say From the window of a plane on a sunny day There a four levels of the rainforest.Let's take a walk & see. Look straight up,we will find what's called the Understory. Bromeliads and orchids are called Epiphytes They grow without soil at different heights Butterflies,Tree Frogs,& hummingbirds Are some of the sounds that can be heard There is one more level of the rainforest.We've reached the number four. The lowest level of the rainforest is simply called the Floor. Clay and sand & fallen leaves Mold & fungus,buttressed roots of trees Insects,Millipedes,crocodile Anacondas & natives who love to smile. At the four levels of the rainforest ...let's take a walk & see. There are four levels of the rainforest.Name them now with me. Emergent Layer & canopy Are one & two.Let's go for three. The Understory,don't forget number four The lowest level,the forest Floor. *Little froggy (tune: I'm a little teapot) See the little froggy Swimming in the pool The water's great- It's nice and cool when he gets all cleaned up Out he'll hop Squeeky clean >From bottom to top. See the little froggy On the lily pad Trying to catch flies She's getting sad. When she catches one, She'll gobble it up Back in the water She'll go kerplop! *Baby Frogs Ribbit Ribbit said mama frog Sitting on a great big log "Where are my babies, where can they be? Then out of the pond jumped one, two and three. (Hold up three fingers , one at a time) She was happy as could be, But where were the other? She couldn't see. So, "Ribbit, ribbit," she called again. The out they jumped---4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10. (hold up remaining fingers one at a time) * Five little freckled frogs setting on a speckled log (5 fingers on bent arm) Eating the MOST delicious bugs, yum, yum! (pick bugs out of air, rub tummy) One jumped into the pool, where it was nice and cool, (finger hops in pool) Then there were four freckled frogs! Continue with four frogs, then three, and so on. Then there were NO freckled frogs! * For our wall/bulletin board we did a zoo train. I cut out the engine and about 20 cars. The kids found zoo animal picture, cut them out and glued them onto the cars. We also labled each ofthe cars with the animal names. * A collage from animal crackers *A giraffe shape orange paper, and sponge paint it with black paint to make spots * Cookie cutter and sponges of zoo animals - printing *manipulatives - small zoo animals (goodie bag stuffers) and strawberry basket cages for sorting * block center - sent a note home to send in zoo type stuffed animals and we built a zoo from lg cardboard blocks *dramatics - added "vet" supplies to dramatics center *outdoors/gross motor - set up an obsticle course, make binoculars from TP tubes, hang up laminated pics of wild/zoo animals around the course, and go on a safari! *Circle - Goin' on a Lion Hunt *Fluffy Birds Glue 2 popsicle sticks together to form a cross. Glue real colored or paper feathers onto the cross leaving the top for a head. Glue paper head on top OR use markers as eyes & beak. * Zany Zebras Give each child a construction paper picture of a zebra with no stripes, mane, or tail. Use a fine brush or Q-tip & have them make stripes with black tempera paint. When paint dries, glue strips of florecent paper on neck & tail. Have the kids fringe paper.