JUNGLE WEEK: PK-3

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Jessica's Week

So this turned into kind of an odd mash up for us. I had seen lots of “Jungle” pinterest activities and wanted to include this as a unit. Unfortunately, when I started gathering resources and checking out books, many of the animals mentioned did not come from a clearly defined “jungle” environment. We had everything from deserts to rainforests represented.  So I guess it was more of overarching zoo lesson than jungle but whatever. 

We reviewed camouflage (which had been introduced in our Arctic lesson) and spent a lot of time discussing different habitats and geography of the world. I tried to do a few cultural activity tie-ins with  crafts by making rain sticks and African masks.  We listened to music and watched cultural dance videos from these regions of the world. Taegan loved creating her own sensory bin for the “zoo” animals to play in. She gathered lots of leaves, rocks, sticks etc and attempted to layer them the same way the layers of the rainforest are explained by “cat in the hat” in our book/tv episode. She used a water bottle with holes poked in the bottom to “make it rain” and we observed places where the water pooled and how this might be attractive or unattractive for various animals and plants. For snack we made delicious chocolate covered frozen bananas dipped in coconut and crushed nuts. While we eat really healthy 80-90% of the time our school themed snacks rarely meet my standards. This was one treat that I felt proud of. Sure there’s some dark chocolate involved but everything else was healthy and T got to do each step on her own. She stirred up the chocolate to melt, dipped fruit, crushed the nuts with a mortar/pestle, and rolled the banana in its toppings. Yum!
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Truthfully, we didn’t spend a whole lot of time on school this week but I enjoyed everything we did ….especially our field trip Friday at the free Smithsonian zoo in DC visiting all our animal friends up close and personal in their habitats. This is an easy bridge to summertime unit and I think I’ll repeat it as a mini (maybe 1 or 2 days max) next year.