Jungle Songs

Our Jungle theme was perfect for introducing lots of fun jungle and animal songs, the most popular one being A Jungle Adventure: A Journey with Jesus.  This one gets requested by the kids ALL the time! Unfortunately, I can't show you a link because I can't find it on youtube, but if you search "A Jungle Adventure" on iTunes you will find it under the album title "Big Jungle Adventure: Jammin' Jungle Tunes".

Who's the King of the Jungle? is another fun song we've been singing.  Here's a video of the exact song we use in class, but you'll have to get your child to show you the actions since we use different ones.



Out of all the stories we read this month, Ten Naughty Little Monkeys was probably the kids favorite, so we of course had to sing 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.  I'm sure you know the song, but here's the lyrics anyway:


5 little monkeys jumping on the bed (all five fingers up, with your hand moving up and down)
1 fell off and bumped his head (smack the palm of your right hand to your forehead)
Mama called the doctor and the doctor said (make your thumb and your pinkie into a phone and hold it up to your ear)
"No more monkeys jumping on the bed!" (wag your finger and scold the monkeys in a deep voice)


4 little monkeys.....(continue down to one)

1 little monkey jumping on the bed
He fell off and bumped his head
Mama called the doctor and the doctor said
"Put those monkeys straight to bed!"


Another requested monkey song we learned was 5 Little Monkeys Swinging in a Tree.


5 little monkeys swinging in a tree (all five fingers pointing up and swinging side to side)
Teasing Mr. Crocodile "you can't catch me!" (wag your finger and taunt the crocodile in a higher voice)
Along came Mr. Crocodile as quiet as can be.....(whisper these words as you place your hands together to make a crocodile's mouth)
AND SNAP! (yell this, as you clamp your hands together)


4 little monkeys.....(repeat all the way down to one)

1 little monkey swinging in a tree
Teasing Mr. Crocodile "you can't catch me!"
Along came Mr. Crocodile as quiet as can be....
AND..."Missed me, missed me, now you gotta kiss me!" (point to your cheek and taunt the crocodile in a high voice)
MUAH!!!! (make an exaggerated big kiss in the air)




We've been singing Hip Hip Hip Hippopotamus  a lot as well, but the new favorite song of the kids is Elephants Have Wrinkles.

A Jungle Adventure

I decked out the classroom in a Jungle theme, which actually began even before school started when I mailed each child their own Chicka Chicka Boom Boom postcard.  I made a matching bulletin board to go with it, with a letter for each child's first initial.  Centers were really fun to create with animal costumes in the Dramatic play area:

And some animal puppets too!  The kids put on some fantastic little shows for us through the puppet window.

I had Crocodile Dentist on the puzzle table but he quickly got broken, so he became a water table toy which I think was even more fun!  Miss Anna made our water swampy by adding green food coloring, and I added small plastic animals for the crocodile to chomp down on.  The kids loved seeing how many animals could fit in his mouth and it became a great opportunity for counting when I'd ask how many were inside his mouth.

The sand was full of jungle animals and little trees that the kids loved to dig deep into the sand and section off areas.

At circle time we read some fantastic animal books like:

• Lion's Lunch?
  
• Hilda Must Be Dancing
• Rumble in the Jungle
• On Noah's Ark
  
• Ten Naughty Little Monkeys (possibly the favorite!)

We made fun "Snake Tracks" during craft time by cutting strips of yarn, dipping it in paint and then dragging it across the paper.  This gave us a chance to talk about snakes in the jungle but also relate it to the snake in our bible story when we talked about Adam and Eve sinning in the garden of Eden.

I hope you enjoyed taking a trip through the jungle with me!

Noah's Ark

This week we are learning about Noah's Ark in our bible story time, so it has been infiltrating our classroom.  The water in the water table is blue with all kinds of animals hiding in there.

We have a pretty fantastic Fisher Price Noah's Ark set with a TON of Fisher Price animals, so the toy table was a lot of fun to re-enact the story and pretend.  I even had a couple kids arrange all the animals in pairs, Two by Two.

Our Noah's Ark craft combined scissor skill practice with actually making it rain onto our arks.  I had a simple drawing of an ark photocopied onto brown card stock.  The kids first colored the ark with crayons, cut it out and then glued it onto the paper.  Some then drew pictures with crayons on the white paper, but most wanted to skip right to the rain!

I filled a spray bottle with water and blue food coloring.  You have to make sure the food coloring is pretty concentrated so that it looks very blue on paper.  The kids placed their drawing into a bucket, stood back and then squirted the water bottle to make it "rain" onto their Noah's ark.  The water repels from the crayon and makes a really cool water resist effect with tiny blue droplets all over the page.  Unless of course the kids got trigger happy, and actually "flooded" their page ;)

We also talked about the rainbow being a promise from God to never flood the earth again.  We can stand on God's promises and keep them in our hearts.

Creation

"In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.  Genesis 1:1"

We are so lucky to have Pastor Nathan come up and tell us the bible story once a week.  We sure do love his huge flannel story board!  Each week Pastor Nathan and I tell a new bible story and of course we started the year off with Creation.  

We made really cool splatter paintings by using a small plastic contraption called a "bellow", squishing it so it could suck up some yellow paint and then squeezing it some more so it squirted the paint all over our black card stock.  This was to symbolize how God created the heavens and the earth.  

Our paintings looked so beautiful displayed on the wall all together!

All month long the kids have been practicing their memory verse as well:

"In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.  Genesis 1:1"

You should ask your child to demonstrate for you how well they know this verse!

A fun song we learned about creation was Hip Hip Hip Hippopotmaus.  The kids crack me up when they do their great big hippo dances!  Here's the lyrics and a video to show you the tune:

"In the beginning God made the seas
And the forest filled with trees
He built the mountains up so high
And at the top he placed the sky.

God's fingerprints are everywhere
Just to show how much he cares
And in the middle he had so much fun
He built the hippo who weighed a TON!

Hip hip hip Hippopotamus
Hip hip hooray God made all of us!

Hip hip hip Hippopotamus

Hip hip hooray God made all of us!"

A Brand New Year!

We are so excited your child is coming to Little Lambs Christian Preschool!  We've got a super fun year planned and we hope your child's head is brimming with knowledge and their fingers overflowing with new skills by the end of the year.  

I'm hoping to use this blog as way to communicate with you the parents about the kinds of things we are doing in class: songs we are singing, concepts we are learning and crafts we are making.  Hopefully you will find this useful, and (fingers crossed) I'll find the time to keep this space up to date :)

Welcome to the new school year!

Petland Presentation

The Tues/Thurs class was so lucky to have Petland come and do a 1 hour presentation on our last day of our Animal theme. Jolene brought about 15 animals with her that we all got to see and hold if we wanted to. Don't worry Mon/Wed/Fri class...your animal presentation is coming in April!

All the animals shown were babies so they were very gentle and cuddly. This little bunny was the sweetest little thing!




We all had to sit with our legs crossed if we wanted to hold a guinea pig in our lap.


This is a chinchilla and he sort of looked like a cross between a large mouse, a rabbit and a squirrel. He had the softest fur of all the rodents on his body but his tail felt very bristley like a paint brush.


The ferret was very long and had a strong odour. Jolene said he had been de-scented so I can't even imagine what he would have smelled like if he hadn't been!


Teacher Michelle was brave and she held him. Jolene said he's similar to a cat and can be trained to use a litter box.


He also really liked to play. He rolled over on his back and let his belly be scratched. Then he would stand up and arch his long back and hop! The kids thought that was pretty funny.


We also saw a few different colorful birds. They didn't fly around they just sat in our hands.


...or used our fingers as a perch.




This guy was too big to sit on our fingers so he had to be held in the palm of our hands.




Jolene also brought lizards that all felt very different. This guy was very smooth and Jolene held him with a paper towel so he didn't have any accidents.


This guy was a bearded dragon and he was very spikey. The spikes didn't hurt but his skin felt very bumpy.



This was a baby boa constrictor. I can't believe how big this little guy's going to get!


Lot's of children were brave and touched him to see what he felt like.




Probably the most popular animal was saved for the very end...a baby puppy! He was very friendly, soft and cuddly.


He gave kisses to everyone and they returned the favor by giving him big hugs.



This was a REALLY fun morning. Thank you to Petland for the awesome presentation!

Animal Songs & Rhymes

We learned LOTS of fun animal songs and rhymes in January. We focused on one song a week (sometimes two) and sang them all multiple times throughout the month. Each time we learned a new song we made fun finger puppets to act out the song. Those finger puppets were VERY popular!



5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

The Tues/Thurs class learned this song the very first week. The Mon/Wed/Fri class learned this song back in November when they learned about Doctors and Nurses. We still get requests for this song during circle time.




5 Little Monkeys Swinging in a Tree

This is a really fun version of the original song. The Mon/Wed/Fri class learned this one instead of the other and they just love it. The version the kids learned is slightly different than this one. They sing in a really quiet voice "...along came Mr. Crocodile as a quiet as can be" then really loudly "...AND SNAP!" Instead of the last monkey being snapped he teases "Missed me, missed me now you gotta kiss me! SMOOCH!"




5 Green and Speckled Frogs




Hey Diddle Diddle





Little Bunny Foo Foo

The words we sing to this one are slightly different. Instead of the good fairy turning Bunny Foo Foo into a goon, she warns him that she will turn him into a frog.




Elephants Have Wrinkles

This has become VERY popular in both classes.




I Wanna Be a Dog

Another great Charlotte Diamond song, this one still gets requests at last circle time too. We get down on our hands and knees like a dog on all fours and we act out the lyrics. Very fun and silly.