THE JUNGLE'S WEEK

THE JUNGLE’S WEEK

This is the second week following the plan of http://www.letteroftheweek.com/preparatory_lesson_2.html . I’m going to develop it for my daughter who is a 14 month old toddler and share with you our work. Here you can see our learning poster finished by the end of the week, but we were filling it each day with the activities. If you have read the cow’s week you will see that I’m going to follow the same plan with small changes.

As you see this week we worked again squares and introduced a new color. This way shapes and colors are worked for two weeks introducing one week a color and one week a shape. I also want to explain why I didn’t introduce the letters that appears in the plan. It’s just a question of being interested, she showed interesting with colors, shapes, songs, poems but not yet with letters. I don’t want to work something she is not motivated to, and as she is only 14 months we have enough time to do that in the future as soon as she starts to show curiosity for things. Monday: The Jungle’s day

1º ACTIVITY: Videos. We started with this activity every day of the week. a) First video: “How does the jungle sound? Can you hear it?” As you will see it’s a long video and you can stop it when you see your toddler is not interested anymore. I haven’t seen it all with Noarai but each day she was amazed with these sounds. You can introduce the vocabulary word “vines” because in the video you can see the jungle’s vegetation. Here you’ve got the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlpZEP1qBRA&feature=related. b) Second video: Jungle cruise. It’s not a perfect video but you can see the vegetation and the animals: elephants, lions, hippopotamus, monkeys, etc. I recommend to see it before in order to know where the animals appear and go directly to them. I did it and was her favorite video this week. Here you’ve got the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgptOY_s4cg&feature=related c) Third video: Who’s the king of the jungle? I tried to find a video with the song sang by children. Noarai wants to see this video repeatedly just because they are sang by kids and at last they are her favorite teachers. This video is not well modulated by the children but they do very well all the signs and you can sing with them while watching. Here you’ve got the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW7VA5MMIdE&feature=related

2º ACTIVITY: Poster. I showed her the picture of the jungle and the vines linked in http://ourpreschoolhomeschool.blogspot.com/2007/09/jungle-kittens-eyeslighthouse.html . We found all the jungle’s animals and then we talk about the vines. We put some sticky tape on them and we stuck it to our learning poster with the related word. I always point at the word to her, although you know they cannot read them they are getting used to the act of repeating the word while watching some signs they are getting familiar to.

3º ACTIVITY: Jungle dance. I searched in you tube the Saint Saens “carnaval of animals”. It’s classical music describing the animals. Here you’ve got the links with the animal related: - Elephants: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGLGqn3zCu8 - Turtles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M--VH1oZ3FU&NR=1 - Lions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC4uJkFRik4&feature=related - Aquarium: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYwLZWi9awI&NR=1&feature=fvwp - Birds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ-ZntaDziw&NR=1 With these videos I introduced the jungle animals to Noarai. After we watched the videos we began dancing and imitating each animal walking, swimming or flying all over the room. This activity approached her to classical music, to animals and to exercising while imitating the animal all over the room. Remember that you have to be exaggerated in your movements because your toddler will do the 10% of what you are doing. So get lots of energy for this activity. I had a problem with this activity, because Noarai just loved videos and she didn’t wanted to dance because she wanted to see the videos again, but after asking me and watching I was having a great time dancing she began to dance with me.

Tuesday: Green’s day

1º ACTIVITY: Videos.

2º ACTIVITY: Introduction of color green. I showed to Noarai a Green square we put sticky tape on it and we stuck it on our learning poster (It’s not in the picture because she broke it up before taking it).

3º ACTIVITY: Breaking paper. I showed tissue or wrapping green paper to Noarai. I cut a small bit and she just enjoyed pulling it down and breaking it. We repeated this action as many times as she liked. I always asked her “Do you want to cut green paper? Ok. It’s green. Can you say green?” I waited for some talking before doing it again, sometimes she did it and sometimes she didn’t but thanks to the repetition of the word she got familiar with it. When I saw she was getting bored I Just said “Ok. Are you all done? Let’s keep the green paper.” When we finished I did some balls while Noarai tried too with the green cutted paper. Then she extended some glue in a square with her favorite glue stick (she likes to do everything by herself, but I left her do it first, she is getting better each day, and then I did a quick extended). After it, we stuck all the green balls inside a square and left it apart to dry. You can see the results in the learning poster below.

4º ACTIVITY: Green squares sticks. I used the image of the jungle linked in http://ourpreschoolhomeschool.blogspot.com/2007/09/jungle-kittens-eyeslighthouse.html and added to it some green squares as you can see here. The activity was to fill the green squares with green squares sticks. Noarai enjoyed this activity very much, but she wanted to put the sticks on the animals instead of in the squares. But I could keep her with the first directions and let her do this on Friday. This variation is a good one just to play with the green square sticks and the animals without working so hard fine motor skills. But as Noarai is getting good at this I wanted her to make the effort.

Wednesday: Review squares and green color

1º ACTIVITY: Videos

2º ACTIVITY: Jungle poem. You’ve got the poem “Jungle adventure” http://www.letteroftheweek.com/preparatory_lesson_2.htmleweek.com/preparatory_lesson_2.html . I bought some inexpensive jungle animals in a dollar store and she took them off the box one by one. This way we reviewed the jungle animals and introduced the animals appearing in the poem. We put them on the floor and started with the poem doing all the actions proposed and some of your our own creation. This activity was Noarai’s favorite for the rest of the week we had to do it every day. I memorized the poem while cooking and practice the interpretation before working with her, the most you enjoyed and you are natural the most they enjoyed and get used to poem recitation.

3º ACTIVITY: We had the green walk. We looked over the house for green items I found them and she put them inside the green Tupperware while saying: “Let’s have a walk, have a walk. And see if we can find something green”. You can put your own tune. When she was tired we put all the green items on the green square and took a picture (she loved to identify the objects in the picture). Then we put the green Tupperware next to the yellow one so that she can also play with this objects on her independent playing time (I will make a post on independent playing time).

4º ACTIVITY: Green squares path. I used the foam puzzles we use as a carpet in her bedroom (http://www.amazon.com/Sell-Mats-Anti-Fatige-Interlocking-Flooring-Set/dp/B0012KUDPE/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games&qid=1263760063&sr=1-13). For preparing the game: I asked her “Is this green? No, it’is yellow”. I continued asking her this way until we found the green ones. Then we placed them in the family room separated one from the other. We just walked through them slowly as a turtle, flying like a bird, swimming like a fish, roaring like a lion… We reviewed the animals while working balance (gross motor skill). If you want your toddler to do it you must do it very exaggerated each time and laughing a lot, encourage your tot when he/she do something similar he/she will be soon doing the movements.

Thursday: Number two’s day

1º ACTIVITY: Videos

2º ACTIVITY: Introduce the number. I showed number two and put two square sticks on it. She put some sticky tape on the back and we stuck it to the learning poster as you can see below.

3º ACTIVITY: Cards. We reviewed number one cards and introduced number two. I pointed at the number and then counted the sticks on the other card with her finger. She of course did the monkey’s sound.

4º ACTIVITY: Drawers counting fun. I filled a drawer small set with two objects in each drawer and prepared two small cups to count the objects (a tip is to prepare all of these before starting the activity). I opened the first for her and count 1 and 2 filling the small cups with the objects. She did it inmediatly with the rest of the drawers. Sometimes she didn’t wanted to count because she wanted to find the colourful stones (her favourites objects in this activity) I decided for the next number I will fill most of the drawers with them, because the most important thing is the motivation to the activity. But she enjoyed very much this activity: opening the drawers and the sound of the objects falling in the cups it’s quite interesting for her.

5º ACTIVITY: We went to the fridge and put the new number on it. I left the numbers there and she had great fun playing with them each time she was at the kitchen. She was playing with numbers and also practicing fine motor skills trying to put them back on the fridge.

Friday: Reviews day

1º ACTIVITY: Videos

2º ACTIVITY: Craft. I prepared again the jungle image http://ourpreschoolhomeschool.blogspot.com/2007/09/jungle-kittens-eyeslighthouse.html and give her green square sticks. I left her put them on the animals as she wanted to do on Tuesday. She had fun saying the name and sticking the squares on them. I left her do as much as she wanted. We finished sticking two squares for number two. Then we put glue in the square (I put it and Noarai extended it with a brush) and we filled it with a green alga I use for cooking (but you can use whatever you want). Finally we left it for drying.

3º ACTIVITY: Poem. She asked me for it and we did it again.

This was our week. On Sunday we went all the family to the zoo in order to see all the animals we had studied. I left her play all week with a puzzle of the jungle, and with the jungle animals I bought at the dollar store. I also put her more often the signing time video “The zoo train” (http://www.signingtime.com/shop/dvds) so that she could review the signs (I would make an article about signing time). We were singing the song all over the week at diaper changing, bath, meals, car… at the end of the week she started to sing it. We had a really fun week.