Rainforests

Once again, we decided to start off a unit with a chapter book. We spent the morning reading a Magic Tree House book. In fact, that was how the subject of rainforests was chosen in the first place. I asked Evie what Magic Tree House book she wanted to read next, and she chose the one about the Amazon. This time, I found a sound track of jungle sounds on YouTube to play in the background while we read. It created a nice sense of ambiance. We also looked up pictures of the animals that appeared in the story.
Next, we sat on the floor and read Life Cycles: Rainforest and Nightwatch: Nightlife in the Tropical Rain Forest. 
Since I had several ideas for this subject, we spent the better part of the week on it. And it has very appropriately wrapped up just in time for Earth Day!


Books

• Magic Tree House: Afternoon on the Amazon by Mary Pope Osborne
• Life Cycles: Rainforest by Sean Callery
• Poison Dart Frogs by Jennifer Dewey
• Nightwatch: Nightlife in the Tropical Rain Forest by Peter Riley and Sherry Gerstein from Reader's Digest Children's Books
• El Gran Capoquero/ The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry
• The Sea Serpent's Daughter: A Brazilian Legend by Margaret H. Lippert
• The Shaman's Apprentice by Mark J. Plotkin and Lynne Cherry
• Colores del Bosque Tropical por Susan Canizares y Betsey Chessen
• Colorful Chameleons! by Michelle Knudsen
• The Jungle Book (Little Golden Books) from Walt Disney Company 

Videos

• Reading Rainbow S1 E8: The Shaman's Apprentice (on Amazon Prime Video)
• Kratt's Creatures S1 E8: Rain Forests: Under the Canopy (Amazon Prime)
• Planet Earth 2 S1 E3: Jungles (on Netflix)

Activities

• Craft: Toilet paper roll parrot. Wrap a toilet paper roll in colored construction paper. Punch hole in the bottom to put feathers through for the tail. Glue small feathers on the sides for wings. Tape feathers on the inside top for some plumes on the head. Fold and glue or tape a piece of paper for the beak. Glue buttons for eyes. If you are Evie, name it Pepe.

• Pretend play: Monkeys. When studying the rainforest, how can you not act like monkeys? Eat bananas, scratch your armpits, groom each other...ooh ooh ahh ahh.

• Jungle sunset "stained glass" window. Cut a piece of contact paper in any size you want, and use painter's tape to secure to the window with sticky side out. Cut out vine and leaf shapes from black paper and stick on for jungle silhouette. Then use bits of colored tissue paper to fill in the rest. Evie also put up some darker dots to symbolize the rain. Here is a picture of the window when we were just getting started. We added it it throughout the week. 

• Craft: Rainstick. Here's the tutorial we used: https://www.giftofcuriosity.com/diy-rain-stick-craft/  We added glittery stickers of rainforest animals. 

• Craft: Green paper chain vine. We used tape and green construction paper to make a long chain. I did the cutting, Evie did the taping (for the most part). We made it long enough to drape across a set of double windows in the playroom.