Creatures of the Rainforest

I continue to be impressed by the quality and creativity of the materials Mother Goose Time  sends me every month. This week we learned about some of the creatures who make their home in the rainforest. We are a little behind and there is so much fun stuff to learn and play with that it would be a shame to miss any of it. So we did our best to catch up from last week's material and learn as well as the fun stuff MGT planned for this week. 

We colored (and glitter glued) the pages I printed up but everything else was provided for us. 

One of the most fun things we made was the parrot. If you have seen any of my other posts you know the deep love my granddaughter has for the repeating parrot toy so this was right up her alley. She allowed me to hang this up in our tree for the day but then of course it needed to go home with her. 

I enjoyed the Jaguar J art project because she is just learning that letters have sounds and this was a great way to reinforce this to her. Plus she didn't know what a Jaguar was until now. 

5 has a pretty good memory and did surprisingly well playing the Matching Rainforest Animals game. We have played it several times this week and it's been fun to see her be able to name all the creatures on the cards. As always it has been an inside the hexagon game. 

And how about these monkey masks? 

After we made the masks we used the counting monkeys from Day 3 and played 5 Little Monkeys. Two year olds don't really subtract but they all know and love this rhyme. I held on to three monkeys and she held two as we had them jump up and down together on the floor. Like many children, 5 loves the "bumped his head" part of that story so these monkeys did elaborate flips and spins in the air as they fell toward the ground. I had recently looked for monkeys like this in a store so I was delighted to find them in the Mother Goose Time box when it arrived the middle of last month. We have hung them from the table, from our tree in our rainforest and they are currently hanging on a couple different cupboard door knobs in our family room. Monkeys are probably 5's second favorite rainforest creature. 

Today was especially fun around here. We had another 2 year old girl over for the day. The favorite toy of every 2 year old is another 2 year old and this one just happens to be 5's best friend (can toddlers have best friends?). This friend is a little more cautious than my granddaughter but she played along with our silliness. I hung tablecloths over the dining room table to make them a tent and we played the Build-a-Snake Game inside. Each snake is built by matching the patterns on the cards, much like a game of dominoes. 

We also made the Spiral Snake with the materials provided. I've made snakes from paper plates before but never thought of using bubble wrap to make snakeskin patterns with paint. After they dried we played with these the rest of the day. 

Like I said earlier, our friend is a quieter, more cautious 2 year old and I don't know if it was the googly eyes, the ribbon tongue or the fact that it was a snake, but by the time her mom picked her up she had had enough of the snake and didn't want to take it home. But her mom loved it so off it went. 

Another successful week of learning.