For Heather and my portion of "Where the Wild Things Are," we created an African jungle. It was a very tedious process creating all of our animals, but I think the ending product made it worthwhile. We created two different rooms - one where the story was read which set the mood, and the other where all the animal explorations took place. To connect the two rooms, we set up giant , scaled, animal tracks for the students to follow until it led us to our destination. The animal tracks consisted of elephants, cheetahs, zebras, and hippos. I thought this part was incredible because the children actually all tried to fit into one print and it gave them an idea of how big these animals really are.
When the students first arrived earlier than the start time, Heather and I were very startled. We did not take into consideration the down time we would have before the activity would actually start. Once we got our wits about us, we decided to have the kids draw a wild thing. We also decided to sit and get to know them a bit better. Some kids opened up right away, while others needed a bit of coaxing.
Once it was time for the activity to began, Heather read the story, and the children all listened and answered any questions we had. After the story, we told the kids they were going to see where wild things were in Africa. The excitement on one little boy's face made me so happy!
He looked at me and said, "Are we really going to Africa, how long does it take to get there?" I thought that was the most precious thing and was so excited that he was that interested in what we were doing.
The kids had an opportunity to make binoculars, and their enthusiasm towards it was also exciting. Once the kids created their binoculars, we showed them a map of where we would be traveling to. We then got on the magical schoolbus that our group had built out of boxes and spray-painted with zebra stripes to take us to the other room.
The animal prints that I previously mentioned took us to the African safari room. Once we arrived into the jungle we explored elephants, zebras, hippos, cheetahs, as well as bats. The kids loved exploring the bat cave, touching the cheetah and zebra skins and learning all there is to know about the animals we had for them. The only thing I would do differently in the safari room is to only allow a few kids in the bat cave at a time, because when they all got in there they started to act up a bit.
When the exploration of the safari room was done we went back to our original room, where the students created their own jungle using markers and paper. The kids drew amazing pictures with great details, and I was so proud of them! All in all I thought that the experience was amazing, and I would love to do it again. I think that the kids are going to continue to enjoy their next three weeks in the program and look forward to what will come. =)
When the students first arrived earlier than the start time, Heather and I were very startled. We did not take into consideration the down time we would have before the activity would actually start. Once we got our wits about us, we decided to have the kids draw a wild thing. We also decided to sit and get to know them a bit better. Some kids opened up right away, while others needed a bit of coaxing.
Once it was time for the activity to began, Heather read the story, and the children all listened and answered any questions we had. After the story, we told the kids they were going to see where wild things were in Africa. The excitement on one little boy's face made me so happy!
He looked at me and said, "Are we really going to Africa, how long does it take to get there?" I thought that was the most precious thing and was so excited that he was that interested in what we were doing.
The kids had an opportunity to make binoculars, and their enthusiasm towards it was also exciting. Once the kids created their binoculars, we showed them a map of where we would be traveling to. We then got on the magical schoolbus that our group had built out of boxes and spray-painted with zebra stripes to take us to the other room.
The animal prints that I previously mentioned took us to the African safari room. Once we arrived into the jungle we explored elephants, zebras, hippos, cheetahs, as well as bats. The kids loved exploring the bat cave, touching the cheetah and zebra skins and learning all there is to know about the animals we had for them. The only thing I would do differently in the safari room is to only allow a few kids in the bat cave at a time, because when they all got in there they started to act up a bit.
When the exploration of the safari room was done we went back to our original room, where the students created their own jungle using markers and paper. The kids drew amazing pictures with great details, and I was so proud of them! All in all I thought that the experience was amazing, and I would love to do it again. I think that the kids are going to continue to enjoy their next three weeks in the program and look forward to what will come. =)
--Some classmates enjoying our bat cave!
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