Rain Forest Animals

We learned a couple of great rhymes and songs about rain forest animals this week!
 One was about toucans which we acted out with finger puppets:

Five little toucans sitting in a tree…
The first one said, “Won’t you look at me?”
The second one said, “See my pretty bill?”
The third one said, “Your voice is rather shrill!”
The fourth one said, “Careful we should be…”
The fifth one said, “Never know what you may see!”
Then down flew the Harpy eagle, very fast in flight,
And the five little toucans flew clear out of sight!

And the other was about the 5 little monkeys who were teasing Mr. Alligator!  The kids always enjoy acting out the songs and rhymes, which helps them remember the words better.

There are so many fascinating animals that live in the rain forest!  For one of our projects, we cut and pasted baby rain forest animals and matched them with their mamas!  I am so impressed with the kids’ cutting abilities!  They have really done well this year with learning to use scissors!

One of the interesting things we learned about rain forest animals is that toucans sometimes pass fruit back and forth with each other!  This made for a terrific activity for our preschoolers!  They practiced passing and catching some plastic fruit with a partner.  We had lots of giggles and fun together as they tried really hard not to let their fruit fall on the ground!

After looking at many pictures of various kinds of colorful toucans, the children used watercolors to paint their own unique toucan.  They paint so carefully now!  I love seeing how much these kids learn throughout the school year!

This class got to create their own rain forest scene.  I loved hearing what they said they were painting.  We had trees, vines, snakes, flowers, and even jaguar footprints!

 

Our letter of the week was “V”.  We enjoyed listening to a story of a rain forest python named “Verdi” and then played a hide-and-seek game.  One child hid the letter “V” while another child was around the corner.  Then, the whole class sang loud or soft depending on how close the finder was to the hidden letter.  We reinforced the name of the letter every time it was found.  The kids were thrilled with this game!

Sometimes we don’t set out specific activities, but let the children choose whichever toy they want to take off the shelves.  This freedom often leads to creative outcomes!  I love this picture during centers that captured these students acting out the story of “Little Red Riding Hood.”  They came up with this and carried it out all on their own!

Building together with friends!

Making the letter “V” during snack time!  These kids are always thinking!

I love teaching these precious children!  What a joy it is to see them learning and growing each day!