TITLE: Inside The Rainforest

GRADE: First

LENGTH: 90 minutes (30, 60 minutes)

CONCEPT: The rainforest is full of many different creatures, as has been discussed through learning about the layers and animals of the rainforest.

RATIONALE: The students know that there are plants and animals in the rainforest. This focus of the unit narrows in on specifics of the rainforest's interior through literature and mathematics.

STUDENT OBJECTIVES:

• The students will listen attentively to the information about the rainforest while being read What Is a Jungle?, a Just Ask Book.
• The students will name things in the book that they've heard in the past two days while studying the rainforest and explain something about those things following the reading of the book.
• The students will employ mathematical counting principles by correctly completing two dot-to-dot worksheets.
• Independently, students will order numbered squares in a puzzle activity.
• The students will practice displaying that they know where different creatures of the rainforest reside by cutting and pasting them onto the correct layer of the rainforest.
• The students will read aloud the poem Rain Forest Song as a whole class after it is read to them by the teacher.

MATERIALS: What Is a Jungle? By Chris Arvetis and Carole Palmer

LESSON BODY:

1. Perform a pop quiz of sorts to evaluate the effectiveness of past discussed material. Ask the students what a jungle is. (Look for responses of "rainforest" and aspects of the rainforest.)
2. Inform the students that today will include more work with the rai8nforst, including specific creatures of the rainforest.

 

PROCEDURES:

3. Read What Is a Jungle? aloud to the class.
4. Ask the students if there was any new information in the book that they didn't know about a rainforest/jungle.
5. Write on chart paper the new rainforest facts.

 

FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITY

Independent Seatwork

6. Explain that morning work will be a fun application of things they've learned about in the book and on previous days.
7. Show the students the worksheets and explain the directions for each. Also explain the mathematical implication of the work.
8. Send the students to their seats to work.

 

Poem Read-aloud

9. When the students are all finished with their practice worksheets, have them come together as a whole class again.
10. Introduce the poem, Rain Forest Song, to the class.
11. Read the poem aloud to the class.
12. Pass out the poem to the students.
13. Have them look it over and read it to themselves until everyone has theirs.
14. Read the poem aloud slowly so they can follow along with their eyes.
15. Have the students join in for a third reading of the poem.

 

CLOSURE:

16. Ask the students if they learned anything else new about the rainforest during the activities.
17. Have them discuss with one another new things they learned about the rainforest.
18. Ask for volunteers to share their new information.
19. Write these new facts on chart paper and post them in the classroom.