Rain Forest Animals 1 2013

Have I ever told you how much I LOVE teaching 

ENRICHMENT Summer School?

I really do!

This week for Rain Forest Animals 1

we learned about 

frogs

big beautiful butterflies

jaguars

alligators and their cousins

monkeys

and the rain forest they call home!

We were so lucky to have a couple of 

National Honor Society kids help out this week

and my sweet daughter, Sorcha, who is working off

the purchase of a ukulele ...

(this is the same kiddo at age 5 who asked Santa for an

accordion a few days before Christmas!)

Here is Trey working with the kiddos

on an -og and -y (long i) word family project.

(don't you LOVE the hats?)

 

This is Ashton creating a frog with the explorers.

Cute!

While the kiddos waited their turn at the stations,

they had free choice!

At my station we painted a frog with balloons!
Crazy but true...and a lot of fun!

We also practiced counting and printing numerals
to 100 by 10's...nice review!

I love these explorers!

Something new and fun this year...
an attendance chart!
Everyday the kids found their frog, added a sticker
and put it on the chart...nice housekeeping touch!

On Tuesday Sorcha led a table creating butterfly hats
and a symmetrical "scratch and draw" butterfly.

The kids and Ashton worked on a tissue paper 
and contact paper butterfly.

My station was (you guessed it)
symmetry and squish painting!
We also noticed how the colors blended together to 
make new colors in places...

We signed in everyday...
Tuesday's chart was yet another 
symmetrical butterfly.

If you had a chance to stop by our room,
here's some of the rain forest sights you might 
have spied...

Oh, my favorite...a rain forest vine right across our room!

There is a ton of great children's literature
with the rain forest theme!

Wednesday brought a bit of reading practice
with Trey...Step Into The Rain Forest.

Sorch introduced the layers of the rain forest
with a large watercolor painting project.
We learned the layers are
forest floor
understory
canopy
emergent layer.

The art table had tons of supplies for free exploration...

Love the jaguars the kids drew...

My station was creating this super adorable 
paper jaguar.

Book Time!

Finally, the day we were waiting for...
ALLIGATOR DAY!
Trey played a rain forest beginning sound game
and a game of SNAP...a math reasoning game.

Ashton helped to create these cute alligator necklaces.

And here is my station...
the kids created and painted these 
3 Dimensional Alligators

How long can your monkey chain go?


This is a puzzle the kids worked together to solve
(more than one way to solve it...LOVE IT!)

Here is another tough puzzle...

More sights from the rain forest...

EXPLORERS!

Oh, here is a group measuring project!

By Friday our big 'gator grew to 12 inches!

A 'gator wrangler!

Ashton got a head start on Friday's picture frames
as they are bit labor intensive...
THANKS! 
We did finish them on Friday with her help!

What a fast, fun, fantastic week!
We will see some of you for 
Rain Forest Animals 2
which begins the first full week in August
with 5 new animals!