The Zoo

The Zoo unit is great fun! We always plan a trip to the Knoxville Zoo during the week of this unit. The children LOVE it and it really gets them excited to learn about animals.

Books to Read:

Ten in the Bed-Penny Dale

Monkey Do!-Allan Ahlerg

Inside a Zoo in the City-Alyssa Satin Capucilli

1,2,3 to the Zoo-Eric Carle

Going to the Zoo-Tom Paxton

Writing Center:

We added the words: turtle, zebra, zoo, lion, rhinoceros, elephant, and giraffe. On the first day of the unit we also have a class discussion about what animals we might see at the Zoo. I record their answers on paper and make sure they are available for the children to look at while they are in writing center. I allow some of the answers to be a little wild, because the day after the Zoo, we circle the animals we saw and talk about the ones we didn't and why.

Art:

We made elephants using toilet paper rolls painted grey and then had the children color the elephant head, feet (4) and tail. Then we cut them out the children glued them on to the dry toilet paper roll. We had some really colorful elephants! 

We also made 3-D snakes. In The Complete Resource Book from Gryphon House on page 429 there is a snake that is just great to do!

File Folder Games:

During this week we put out a color matching game that has snakes and different colors of grass that match the snake. The children love it!

Center Items:

We put zoo animals in blocks; baby zoo animals in math and manipulatives; lizards, frogs and snakes in Science, and snakes in the water table. We also have stencils of different animals for the art center.

We display our 3-D elephants and the animal cages we made for the circus on a shelf especially for our 3-D art. We hang the snakes from the art display line or sometimes from the ceiling. 

In housekeeping or at circle we added masks on paint sticks for the children to be able to act like their favorite animal. Walmart had some really cute paper plates this year with all kinds of animals on them.

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