Afternoon on the Amazon

For warm up, the children colored pictures of a jaguar, snake, and monkey. I found some great coloring pages online at http://www.thecoloringbarn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Rainforest-20.jpg and http://www.321coloringpages.com/images/rainforest-coloring-pages/rainforest-coloring-pages.gif.

I summarized the sixth book, Afternoon on the Amazon, and asked the children a variety of questions about the book.

When we arrived at the part in the book where the tree house spun, each child received a Dizzy Pill (which is actually a tootsie roll) to help make them less dizzy. After eating their Dizzy Pills, the children were instructed to spin around three times, as if they were in the spinning tree house.

When we got to the part in the book where Jack wrote in his notebook, I showed the notebook I made that has all of Jack's notes in it.

We made our own snakes, just like the one Jack grabbed when he tried to get back to shore. Each kid got a green pipe cleaner and strung Fruit Loops onto it. This not only was a cute craft, but it was also a delicious snack for later! 

Then, we made monkey puppets using paper plates. Prior to the meeting, I placed two paper plates on top of each other and stapled them together halfeay around the edges. I folded each unstapled plate-half over the stapled section, so there would be a pocket for the kids to hold the puppet. At the meeting, each kid got their stapled paper plates and colored them to make a monkey. I was really impressed with everyone's puppets!

Finally, I handed out a matching game for all of the children to play. There were pictures of all the animals in the book - snakes, vampire bats, army ants, butterflies, jaguars, crocodiles, monkeys, and fish. The children spent the majority of the meeting playing this game - it was a lot of fun!