Friday, January 21, 2011

ROAR!

roar
Summary: A little lion cub just wants to find someone to play with but all the animals get scared away. A cute animal counting book that young children will enjoy.
animalfigures
After reading the book (multiple times), we pulled out our play jungle figures.  We didn’t have all the exact animals from the book, but my 2yr. old pretended she was the little lion cub and she “roared” at the animals asking them to play. It was cute. She came up with that on  her own.
lioncraftThen we made a lion craft out of craft foam. I traced a circle lid on light brown craft foam. Then I made a slightly larger mane. The girls helped put the lion together using Glue Dots. Then we decided to make it a magnet to place on our fridge.
pattern-sorting
Next I pulled out some learning activities from a wildlife kit I purchased from Time for Tots. I thought this activity was so clever—I wish I would have thought of it myself! Time for Tots created an animal mat which contained pictures of various jungle animals. My daughter had to match the appropriate animal print to the animal picture. My four year old loved this activity! In fact, one day I came into the school room and found out that she had gone into the file, pulled this activity out and did it correctly (and left it all over the floor-lol!)
patternsort2
This was another activity included in the Time for Tots kit. My 4yr. old used tongs to sort the animal beads into the appropriate section of the sorting bin.
pattern-sorting3
Included in the kit we purchased were a variety of plastic animals. We added our own jungle animal collection and then sorted them by how they move (there was a third card with “swim” included). We could have also sorted by size, whether they lived on land or in water etc. All those sorting cards were included in the kit.

We also reviewed our jungle animals word cards. We had previously did a J is for Jungle unit earlier this year. We talked about the different animals and the sounds they made (if we knew them—what sound does a hippo or giraffe make?—lol)

This actually was an unplanned mini-unit on my part (we did these activities over a period of three days.) My girls found the book and wanted to read it again. Since I had just received my wildlife kit from Time for Tots, it was so easy to come up with activities! I liked having these activities to choose from and not having to spend the time printing, laminating, and cutting them out myself. I highly recommend looking into what Time for Tots has to offer.

For More Book/Craft/Preschool ideas see:
stART : A Mommy's Adventures
Read. Learn. Explore.
Preschool Corner
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Best toys for toddlers

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13 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Sweet. These posts seriously make me wish I had a preschooler again.

January 21, 2011 at 1:50 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Love it! :) Gonna use ideas, of course ;)

Stop by the High paw when you get the time...

And for Jimmie... what's stopping you! LOL

January 21, 2011 at 5:48 PM  
Blogger Brimful Curiosities said...

That's a really cute lion craft. And easy to assemble. Perfect for little kids. I also like the idea of a pattern match.

January 21, 2011 at 8:39 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

We have a Time for Tots color kit. It is really wonderful. I love the story retelling you did with the animals.

Thanks for linking to Read.Explore.Learn. I will Stumble this post.

January 22, 2011 at 8:49 AM  
Blogger Elle Belles Bows said...

Thanks for sharing. Love TIme for Tots and did not realize that they had the animal mats. I need to check it out. Thanks! Kerri

January 22, 2011 at 3:35 PM  
Blogger Jackie Higgins said...

I love to see someone using a Time for Tots kit. I've been looking at those but haven't bought one yet. Also, a fiction book that might be fun to read is Roar by Robert Munsch. It's about a Kindergarten kid who roars at animals and scares them away.. finally he even scares the teacher. You can listen to Munsch read it on his website for free if you don't have it. I just thought of it when I saw your little one roaring. lol!

January 22, 2011 at 3:43 PM  
Blogger huana said...

I love the idea of matching the appropriate animal print to the animal picture.I think I'll make it with my daughter.Tnx for sharing!

January 22, 2011 at 5:35 PM  
Blogger Mozer said...

Thanks for the book idea Jackie! I'll have to look for it.

Kerri, if you can't find the mat it's because it was in a limited edition wildlife kit. Maybe Nicole will include it in another kit.

January 22, 2011 at 7:43 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

All your activities look great. I love the foam lion!

January 23, 2011 at 8:42 AM  
Blogger Heather J. said...

Very fun activities!

January 25, 2011 at 3:38 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Featured this post on this week's High paw: http://best-toys-for-toddler.blogspot.com/2011/01/high-paw-show-us-your-best_28.html

Told you I love it! ;) Thanks for adding this and hope to see you around every Friday!

January 28, 2011 at 1:44 PM  
Blogger Michelle Gibson said...

Super cute! I heart it all. *Ü*

January 29, 2011 at 3:37 PM  
Blogger Sun Hats & Wellie Boots said...

Love this activity, can't wait to use it with my daughter :) Thank you for sharing.

January 31, 2011 at 4:12 AM  

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