Rainforest Floor

We've been spending the month of November with Mother Goose Time by learning about the rainforest.  Our first week was spent learning about life on the forest floor.

  Every month we've been focusing on 3 different letters.  During the first week the letter J was introduced when we were learning about jaguars.  Throughout the month the letter will be touched on more with games, activities, and my little journal pages.

The kids made their own jaguars out of the letter J.  Hopefully this will help them remember that jaguar starts with J. 

 We've also been working on name recognition.  Every month they get practice writing their names on their name tags, my little journals, and I can read books.  Some of the older kids can write their own names without any help, and for the others I write their name with a highlighter for them to practice tracing over.  The youngest ones in the class just scribble over their names, but it's the start of making lines and developing fine motor control.

All month long the kids will be observing and documenting the growth of a potato, which is an experiment we started on the day we learned about roots.  Once a week we check the progress, and the kids draw any changes on their observation chart.

One of the manipulatives in this months box was a bag of plastic shapes.  The kids used these with shape design mats to recreate different flowers and also to make their own.  This sort of activity helps with spatial awareness as well as shape recognition.

We spent a day learning about lily pads, and the kids made their own lotus flower pictures using paper plates and cupcake liners.

We talked about how some mushrooms are safe to eat, and some aren't.  The kids took turns asking if a "mushroom" was safe to eat, and then rolling the pocket cube to find out the answer.

The kids made their own mushrooms and decorated the caps.  They stuck them in play dough and then would pick number cards and pick the same number of mushrooms.  For the older kids they would pick 2 numbers and then work on adding them together.

They also used the play dough to plant bead mushrooms and then strengthen their fine motor skills by picking them back out.