It’s rainforest week here at Ranger Stu’s Virtual Zoo! I hope you all enjoyed the video from myself and Dobby the three banded armadillo on Saturday! The plans for my weekly blogs are to provide a task for you and your children to complete in the safety of your own home or garden. They will come in two forms, one for Early Years Foundation Stage and one for KS1 and KS2. Each Wednesday I will be posting a video on my YouTube account and I will drop a link in on my social media pages, so keep an eye out for that.
This Wednesday I will be posting a video all about the layers of the rainforest and the animals that live in each layer. This will include some animal guests from my zoo!
You can find out more about my zoo here www.cedarsnaturecentre.co.uk
Keep an eye out on my Facebook, Instagram and YouTube accounts for that one.
In the meanwhile, here is your weekly task! EYFS - Rain shaker
Rainforests are hot and humid, it rains every single day and a lot!
So let’s create a rain shaker!
Before everyone was socially distancing we attended a wonderful wildlife workshop with my 2 year old and created a very simple rain shaker from objects you could easily find in your home.
You will need...
A cardboard tube
Scissors
Tape
Scrap paper
Rice/sticks/small stones
Firstly get your cardboard tube and tape a square (or if you are really fancy, a circle) of scrap paper over one end of the tube.
Then its time to fill it with your "rain", if you have a garden you could use small stones or sticks that you find or if you don’t have a garden then why not try dried rice or beans or even some Lego!
You could even practise your counting by counting how many objects you put into the tube. Once it has been filled, fold over the last piece of scrap paper and tape it to the tube to secure. Once it’s tightly sealed, give it a shake and imagine the rain pouring through the tall trees!
You could even decorate it using colouring pens or stickers. As you can see, my son just decided to wrap coloured paper around the entire tube!
The Rainforest Alliance also have some great colouring in sheets with information on rainforest animals which you can download and print here.
KS1 and KS2 - Draw a rainforest and the animals that live there! There are some great resources online that you can use to find out more about the rainforest, the animals that live there and the layers that make up the rain forest. (My video on Wednesday will discuss these layers and the animals that are found within them!)
My current favourites ( Free to download - Yay! ) are from the Rainforest Alliance website, here are two of links that should get you started.
https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/kids - There are lots of resources on this website.
https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/curricula/rainforest-layers - Animals that are found in each rainforest layer.
Here is another great link to the layers of the rainforest!
Once you have learnt about the layers of the rainforest you could draw a specific rainforest such as the amazon or even draw your very own rainforest with your very own unique animals. Here’s a picture that my 6 year old drew of the Amazon rainforest full of animals in each layer! A Jaguar on the rainforest floor, a poison dart frog in the understory, a howler monkey and snake in the canopy and a parrot and butterfly in the emergent later!
Perhaps you could write a poem about the animals that live in the rainforest or about the trees and plants that make up the layers of the rainforest !
Whatever you choose have fun and learn along the way!
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