Week 15 Day 1

Book choices for today:

Trees and Plants in the Rainforest   Saviour Pirotta
Let’s Find Rain Forest Animals: Up Down Around   Janice Behrens
The Great Kapok Tree   Lynne Cherry
Dinothesaurus   Douglas Florian
Way Up High in a Tall Green Tree   Jan Peck
Rainforest Animals   Paul Hess

Geography: (first circle)

Need for lesson – A globe, and a rain forest picture or poster.

Geography 25
Today we are going to talk about the tropical rain forest. Tropical rain forest are found near the equator. Let’s look at our globe. Do you remember what the equator is? The continent we have been visiting is South America. Well, South America has one of the largest tropical rain forest on the earth. The Amazon rain forest get its name from the Amazon River. We talked about that river before. The river is found here in the Amazon rain forest.
A rain forest is made up of layers (use poster or picture as you talk about the layers). Different animals and plants can be found within the layers of the forest. The emergent layer is the tallest layer. Beautiful butterflies can be found up in the emergent layer. Beneath this top layer is the canopy layer. This is the main layer of the rain forest. Monkeys and sloths can be found there, as well as many exotic plants like orchids. The canopy is like a big green umbrella formed by the tops of trees. Next comes the under story. This is between the canopy and the floor or ground part the forest. Bushes and small trees are in the under story layer. Lizards, bats, and frogs are some of the animals that live in this part of the rain forest. The last layer is called the forest floor. This is the ground level. Snakes and tapirs live there. It is dark on the forest floor because trees keep out most of the light. The tropical rain forest is a special part of the earth because of the many wonderful living things found there.

(This is a large poster which I folded in half for the picture)

Additional Works:

Rain Forest Worksheets – These are just a few samples, I like them because they are simple, yet give the children an idea about the rain forest locations and layers.

Rain Forest Layers/Animals – These were part of a bulletin board set that I made into a mat work instead.

Zoology: (Second Circle)

Continue talking with the children about dinosaurs.

Additional Works:

Dinosaur Card Set and Skeleton
Dinosaur Art Puppets
Dinosaur Scrubbing

Songs/Poems:

Enormous Dinosaurs
Five enormous dinosaurs letting out a roar
One went away, and then there were four.
Four enormous dinosaurs crashing down a tree
One went away, and then there were three.
Three enormous dinosaurs eating tiger stew
One went away, and then there were two.
Two enormous dinosaurs trying to run
One ran away and then there was one
One enormous dinosaur afraid to be a hero
He went away and then there were zero.

Dinosaur Out to Play
Triceratops went out to play, out in the world of yesterday
He had such enormous fun, that he called for another dinosaur to come.
Stegosaurus went out to play, out in the world of yesterday
He had such enormous fun that he called for another dinosaur to come
(Continue with other dinosaurs-3 more)
…..they had such enormous fun, that they stayed and played
until the day was done.