Thinking Theme: Zoo - 2 Weeks

Letter of the Week:  Zz

Number of the Week:  9

Bible Verse of the Week:  Week 1: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." Ephesians 6:1, Week 2: "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." Philippians 4:13

Books:

Songs:
* Lots of great zoo songs here at Everything Preschool.
_____________________________________
Lesson 1: Z is for Zebra (from Totally Tots)
Objectives:
* To understand what a zebra is and the characteristics of this zoo animal
* To recognize the letter Z (upper and lowercase) and the sound that it makes
* To use the fine motor skills involved with drawing, cutting, and pasting

Materials:
* white and black construction paper, as well as 1 other color of your choosing
* scissors
* glue
* 2 googly eyes

Procedure:

1. Draw an upper and lowercase Z on white paper, cut them out, and glue them onto another color of construction paper.

2. Cut 2 rectangles out of black construction paper and have your child cut small slits along one side of each rectangle.  This will represent the mane of the zebras.

3. Glue the "mane" pieces onto the slants of the Zzs and have your child draw black stripes on
the white construction paper.

4. Glue a googly eye on each Z and you have Zebra Zzs!

Lesson 2: What do zoo animals eat?
(from 2 Teaching Mommies)
Objectives:
* To understand that different animals eat different types of food
* To recognize the types of food each animal eats
* To sort the animals into groups of meat eaters and plant eaters
* To use the fine motor skills involved with cutting and pasting

Materials:
* Printables from 2 Teaching Mommies
* scissors

* glue

Procedure:

1. Cut out each animal piece.

2. Talk about what each animal eats and have your child place and glue each one in the correct category.

Lesson 3: Lion Craft
Objectives:
* To understand what a lion is and the characteristics of this zoo animal
* To use the fine motor skills involved with cutting, pasting, and drawing

Materials:
* paper plate
* orange and yellow construction paper
* orange and yellow tissue paper
* 2 googly eyes
* glue
* scissors

* black marker

Procedure:

1. Cut out a yellow circle and glue it in the center of the paper plate.

2. Have your child cut small squares of orange and yellow construction paper and orange and yellow tissue paper.

3. Glue each square around the outside of the paper plate.

4. Glue 2 googly eyes on the yellow circle.

5. Draw a nose and mouth and whiskers.

6. Sweet Lion!

Lesson 4: Zoo Animal Beginning Sounds Game
(from 2 Teaching Mommies)
Objectives:
* To understand that words start with specific sounds that correlate with a specific letter
* To recognize the beginning sounds of animal names and choose the correct letter they start with

Materials:
* Printables from 2 Teaching Mommies
* clothespins
* scissors

Procedure:

1. Cut out each card, and talk about each animal on the cards.  Have your child place a clothespin on the letter that each animal starts with.  Remember to really enunciate each sound for the letters so they hear them very clearly.

2. I placed the game in a Ziploc bag and labeled it so that we could play throughout the week!



Lesson 5: Elephant Craft from No Time For Flashcards
Objectives:
* To understand what an elephant is and the characteristics of this zoo animal
* To use the fine motor skills involved with painting, cutting, pasting, and drawing

Materials:
* paper plate or paper bowl
* white construction paper
* brown, purple, black, and white paint
* paint brush
* 2 googly eyes
* glue

Procedure:
1. Mix the different paint colors in a bowl to create a grayish, purple color.

2. Have your child paint the paper plate/bowl and the white construction paper, and then set it aside to dry.

3. Cut out 2 ear shapes and a trunk shape from the construction paper.  Glue them to the plate/bowl. (We folded the trunk back and forth instead of adding black stripes like on the website.)

4. Add googly eyes, and you have a cute elephant!

Lesson 6: Animal Cracker Graphing
Objectives:
* To sort animal crackers into groups of the same animal
* To use counting skills to count the number of animals in each group
* To graph the data from counting
* To recognize which animal had the most crackers and which had the least
* To use the fine motor skills involved with coloring

Materials:
* Animal Cracker Graph Printable
* animal crackers
* crayons

Procedure:
1. Find one of each type of animal cracker and have your child place them in a row.

2. Let your child sort each animal cracker into the correct category.

3. Count the number of animals in each category and color a bar graph according to the numbers.  Have your child write the number of animals, as well.  Talk about which group has the most, least, etc.

Lesson 7: Monkey Shape Craft from Shindigz
Objectives:
* To understand what a monkey is and the characteristics of this zoo animal
* To recognize different shapes and how they can fit together to create a monkey mask
* To use the fine motor skills involved with cutting, pasting, and drawing

Materials:
* 2 shades of brown construction paper
* scissors
* glue
* 2 googly eyes
* black marker
* ribbon

Procedure:
1. Trace a circle onto the darker brown construction paper, and cut it out.

2. Draw a shape like this on the lighter brown paper, and have your child help you cut it out and glue it to the circle.

3. Cut out 2 small circles from the light brown paper, and glue them to the sides of the large circle to represent ears.

4. Glue 2 googly eyes to the face of the monkey.

5. Let your child draw lines on the ears and on the face of the monkey like this below.  Also, have them color pink cheeks below the eyes.

6. Glue or tape a popsicle stick to the back of the monkey. You can add a ribbon if you would like.  This is a fun monkey mask for your child to play with!

Lesson 8: Zoo Animal Habitats
Objectives:
* To understand that animals have different habitats
* To recognize the habitats and the animals that live in them
* To sort animals according to their habitat

Materials:
* 3 bowls
* cotton balls
* handful of grass and dirt
* water
* plastic animals if you have them

* Printables from 2 Teaching Mommies

Procedure:
1. Place cotton balls in one bowl, grass and dirt in another, and water in the last one. Talk about the different habitats animals live in.  If you have plastic or wooden animals, allow your child to place them into the correct habitat bowls.

2. Using the cards from lesson #4, place the animal pictures next to the correct habitat bowls.  Discuss how some animals can live in lots of habitats, but some can only live in one type.

Lesson 9: Zoo Animal Syllable Counting
Objectives:
* To understand that words have a certain number of sounds in them called syllables
* To clap out each syllable in animal names
* To count the number of syllables in each name
* To write the number of syllables on the animal picture

Materials:
* Printables from 2 Teaching Mommies
* pencil

Procedure:
1. Talk about how words have a certain number of sounds called syllables and the number of sounds can be represented by claps.  Demonstrate by clapping the number of syllables in different words (Sawyer - 2 claps, Jennifer - 3 claps).  Using the same cards from lesson #4, have your child clap the number of syllables in the names of the animals.

2. Once they have clapped the correct number of syllables, have them write the number on the back of each card.

* This is a hard concept for children to catch on to.  We will be doing more syllable counting in other themes to get more practice!

Lesson 10: Zoo Field Trip and Zoo Book
Objectives:
* To go see animals at the zoo and review/recall the things learned this week
* To create a zoo book as a memory of the trip to the zoo, as well as a reminder of the characteristics of each animal
* To use the fine motor skills involved with drawing and cutting

Materials:
* Printables from ABC Teach
* crayons
* scissors
* hole punch
* ribbon or rings to hold book together

Procedure:
1. Visit your local zoo and talk about each animal you see.  Review the different things you have discussed throughout the week (where each animal lives, what they eat, how many syllables are in their names, etc)

Tiger




Rhinos




The lion sleeps tonight!




Orangutan













2. When you get home, create a zoo book using these printables.  Have your child color each page to review each animal.  Only use the pages of the animals you saw at the zoo.  Punch holes in the pages and tie them together with ribbon to make a book.

* You can also do this checklist lesson while you are at the zoo.  I think this would work well with older kiddos who have a better attention span! :)

Extra Thinking:
1. Great lessons here at Alphabet Soup!

2. Zookeeper Lesson - Talk about what a zookeeper is and the jobs he/she has at the zoo.  Make a list of the different things a zookeeper has to do. 

3. Feed the Monkeys Math Game - Here is a fun counting game from Kid Soup.