Zebra Crossing

We didn't get to all of our planned crafts this week but we did make a zebra.  Eva has been learning how to use scissors so she was able to practice her new skills by cutting out black stripes for her zebra.  Daddy got in on the fun too!

While they were busy cutting stripes, I cut a zebra out of white paper (Daddy helped by drawing one for us) and then Eva used her glue stick to stick the stripes to the zebra.

No craft is complete without a googly eye, of course.  Now we have a zebra prancing through our dining room jungle.

Welcome to the Jungle

Okay, so we didn't really go to the jungle but the ninety degree heat made the zoo feel like the jungle!  We did find some jungle animals though.  Eva and I got to pet an elephant- so cool!  That's her little hand below.

Here are a few of the other jungle animals we saw:

If you are ever in the Syracuse, NY area I recommend checking out their zoo.  It isn't very big but there is a nice variety of animals and the habitats are very spacious.

Where Do You Live?

This is a fun animal sorting game that I made for Eva.  I took stickers of animals that live in the jungle and ones that live in the farm and stuck them to card stock.  I cut them out and on two other sheets of card stock drew jungle and farm scenes.  Eva could then decide where each of the animals lives.

After sorting the animals, Eva started making up stories about them and even had a few of the jungle animals visit the farm.  Gotta love toddler imaginations!
We went to our zoo to look for jungle animals too but my camera batteries dies within minutes of arriving.  We did find these two (Bill and Roscoe).

Thankfully we have another zoo trip planned for today.  We will be heading to this zoo with Grandma- I hope we can find some jungle animals there!

Where is Momma Monkey?

We read this story today about a little monkey who can't find his mom in the jungle.  

After the story we went outside to have our own search for a monkey.  Baby Monkey lost his Momma so Eva was a good friend and helped him find her.  I attached some twine to the Momma and hid her in a tree.  I then draped the twine all over the backyard and Eva had to follow it to reunite Baby with his Momma.  (I saw this idea on a blog somewhere but can't find it for the life of me- if it's your idea please let me know so I can link to you!)

We found her!

Reunited!  (And yes the song is stuck in my head and now it's probably stuck in yours too- sorry!)

Eva then insisted that they needed to return to the tree together.

Squawk! Squawk!

We made a parrot today and no parrot is complete without lots of brightly colored feathers!  To begin, Eva sorted some feathers into two piles- long and short.  (There may have been some tickling involved too!)

While she was doing that I cut out the pieces for our parrot from red and orange paper.  Then we squirted some glue at one end of our parrot and stuck on a few long feathers to make a tail.

Then we glued the shorter feathers onto a wing.

After shaking off the excess feathers, Eva glued on the parrot's beak, talons and eye.

Then the wing went on our bird.

We now have one creature for our jungle.  Meet Mr. Parrot!

In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle

Get out your safari gear- this week we will be exploring the jungle.
Activities
Backyard Safari- we will be exploring the backyard and looking for similarities and differences between it and the jungle

Animal Sort- which animals call the jungle home and which do not?

Mother and Baby Animal Matching- we will break out the felt animals again and reunite the babies with their mommas

Pin the Horn on the Rhino- how close will we get to getting it in the right spot?

Crafts
Leopard- we'll craft a paper leopard and then help him find his spots

Colorful Parrot- feathers will play a big part in this craft!

Paper Zebra- Eva will practice her cutting skills so that our zebra can have stripes

Field Trip
Zoo trip- we don't have any jungles near by so we will visit some of our jungle friends at the zoo instead

Books