- The Cat in the Hat: If I ran the Rainforest
- The Amazon River in a Rain Forest
- The Rainforest Grew All Around
- The Great Kapok Tree
- One Day in the Tropical Rain Forest
- Rain Forests
We borrowed all of the books from the Library, the theme is great since there are tons of resources, books etc. I chose some for classes, some for language arts for Leap Creature to read, some for good night Stories and "the book Crafts for Kids who Are Wild About ... THE WILD" for Crafts.
The boys also watched a great number of videos on Discovery Education which is great since all three boys get to enjoy.
Shutterbook with Map and Flag of Brazil and
This is the first page of the Notebook. You can find it here.
We learned some basic information about Brazil.
For the craft we made you'll need:
- Large jar with lid (if the jar is bigger than the one we used it would make it easier to close the lid in the end)
- modeling clay
- brown tissue paper (I didn't have any brown but it still looks great..)
- two or more shades of green tissue paper
- sticks and twigs
- easter grass (we didn't use any the container was kind of tight.. )
- white glue
- masking tape (I used regular tape and paper)
- I added two pipe cleaner, and had the boys twist them together and wrap them around the trees, snakes of course !! *grin* )
As we learned about the different layers of the Rainforest I found this great Craft. It was a great day today so even though it was Saturday, I took the opportunity to do the craft in the backyard. That gave ME a reason as well to be outside which was GREAT !!
- First press a ball of clay onto the inside surface of the Jar lid. Do not press it onto the sides of the lid, because you won't be able to put the lid back on the jar.
- Break two sticks so that they are as long as the jar. Press them into the clay to make trees. Crumple some green or brown tissue paper and glue it around the top of the sticks to make the leaves. These tall trees are found in the emergent layer.
- Do the same with two or more 2/3 long sticks for the canopy and some twigs for the Understory. We also added some dried flowers for the Understory and Forest floor. As I mentioned earlier our Jar was a bit tight, but for the boys it was enough, also time wise it was just fine. You could also wrap some easter grass around the trees for vines .. be creative, some blue tissue paper for a little stream etc.
- When the glue has dried carefully slip the jar over the trees and screw the lid on.
- With the marker write the name of each of the layers of the rainforest on a strip of masking tape. Stick the labels on the jar to mark each layer.
Many animals spend their entire lives in just one layer of the rainforest.
We read "the great Kapok tree" and did the little Flap Book (right top) as well as the Layers of the Rainforest (right Bottom.
On the back of the Forests Layers he wrote some names of animals that live in each of the 4 Layers.
mini Book about why we need plants and we made a Quiz about fruits and other food of the Rainforest.