J is for Jungles: Themed Activities

 Songs:   In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight

               Who's the king of the Jungle? Who? Who?  (Sunday school song)

               Going on a Lion Hunt  (Can you go on a search for a 'lion' as you sing along?)

               Down in the Jungle/ Jungle Boogie

In my first placement for the Communication Disorders Assistant Certificate years ago, the children loved the song Down in the Jungle and when I was done they gave me the visuals to use whenever I sing the song.  The song is also a book with CD that is very cheerfully illustrated which I enjoyed with children in my second placement.

Books:  The Jungle Book, Jungle Boogie and Good Night Gorilla are three titles that come to mind.  (For more ideas, one will be featured on Tuesday's Library Notes day)

Math:  Count the jungle animals.  Categorize animals by their home: farm, jungle, forest, zoo.

Gross Motor Activities:   Can you walk like a gorilla?  Fly like a parrot? Stomp like a rhino?  Tiptoe like an elephant?  Crawl like a tarantula? Hop like a treefrog?  Run like a cheetah?  Use a magnifying glass and go on an adventure looking for jungle animals.  They can be toys, pictures taped up around the room or live creatures like ants and spiders that also live in the jungle.

Fine Motor Activities:  Pop Up animal cards, finger puppets, animal face masks and origami jungle animals are initial ideas.  You can also put the spots on a cheetah with a bingo dabber, draw jungle animals and do dot-to-dot and colouring pages with the same theme.

Sensory/Craft Ideas:    Add pipe cleaner legs to a paper plate tarantula.  Add ribbon tabs or yarn along a plate for a lion's mane.  Make a book of 'animal skins' ...fabrics with different textures and patterns like bumpy elephant skin, scaly snake skin, furry tiger stripes, and spotted cheetah prints. Hide cut-out animals behind fine cut construction paper jungle grass.  You can also decorate their faces like jungle animals with face paints.

Jungle Animal Speech:  Can you...Smile like a crocodile?  Roar like a lion?  Make the /S/ sound like a snake?  Chew like a panda?  Stick out your tongue like a lizard? Copy my sounds like a macaw? 

Phonics:  Can you find a jungle animal that starts with the /L/ sound?  The /T/ sound? and so forth.

Spelling:  Using scrabble letter tiles, can you spell out LION?  FROG?  HIPPO?  ZEBRA?

GO WILD with these ideas and your own to build literacy based skills in  children.  Reading books, singing songs, writing and making various jungle creations and trying jungle sounds are just some of the things that will make learning together fun and inspiring!

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