Welcome to the Jungle

We eased back from a much needed spring break by starting the Magic Tree House {aka Jack and Annie} Good Morning, Gorillas.  After reading the first few chapters, I gave the kids a blank piece of paper and asked them to illustrate their ideas of what the cloud forest looks like.  These are just a few of our great pieces of work:

This is what the kids walked into the next morning....

There was a lot of oooooh-ing and aaaaaaah-ing.  They truly thought Jack and Annie had visited our classroom and transformed it into the Great Kapok Tree. 

 {I love childhood innocence}

I explained to them that I was just as surprised when I arrived and that I had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the growth of giant tree in the middle of our classroom.

So, we jumped in and went along with the setting by getting ready for our big adventure into the tropical rainforest.  We made our Rainforest Journals to keep our notes along the journey.

We had to make sure everyone had their passport to get to the Amazon.

And we can't forget our safari hat.

Verifying each ID and signing the passport.

We discussed the location of many of the tropical and cloud forests and made a map to go in our journals. {so we don't get lost along the way}  The big word of the day: EQUATOR

They illustrated themselves in the middle of the rainforest.

We completed a daily writing describing our adventure.  

I put it on the SmartBoard and they copy then illustrate.

RUMBLE in the JUNGLE

We learned that there are layers in the rainforest and each one of them are very important to the other.  

Our next big word of the day: ECOSYSTEM

{or in the words of Caleb L. "that means the food circle. Everybody helps in that"}

We made a tree to illustrate the layers:

Layers in the Forest song.  We glued this inside of the tree.

The kids are just eating all this up.

I know I've said it before.

And yes, I'll say it again.

I.LOVE.THESE.KIDS!!!

We kick next week off with a field trip to the movies to see Chimpanzees - so excited!!!

We will continue making our way through the forest floor and then up into the understory.

Stay tuned....