My youngest is three and a half years old.  She absolutely loves learning new things, books, animals and anything that her big sister does.  So when school started again this year it was a rough start for the petite as her older sister rode off on the super cool school bus and got to learn new things all day at school.  So we decided to start doing lessons while big sis is at school.

Since she is three we’ve spent time focusing on numbers and letters, but recently we’ve been spending time focusing on what she loves – Animals.  We get a fair amount of rain here in the Pacific Northwest, so we decided to take a break from puddle jumping and learn about rainforest animals and their habitat.

Here is a little sampling of what we’ve been working on.  Now, before I get too far into this post, I need to give credit where credit is due, the worksheets and images come from a fabulous website 1+1+1=1 which literally has all you need to keep your petites engaged, inspired and learning new things.  Seriously, check out Carisa’s website, she is a homeschooling mom who makes my lesson planning a whole lot easier.

Books:

A Butterfly is Patient by Dianna Hutts Aston and art by Sylvia Long (Chronicle Books, 2011) is one of our favorite books, we love to look at the vibrant colors, check out which butterflies we have seen before and of course read the story.

The Magic School Bus Presents The Rainforest by Tom Jackson and illustrations by Carolyn Bracken (Scholastic, 2014) is yet another perfect book as part of the Magic School bus series, we absolutely love the non-fiction books and think that they are perfect to keep petites engaged and learning all about the rainforest.

Activities:

These two activities are from the awesome Carisa at 1+1+1=1.  I love the amazing visuals she has created and how simple she has made it to get some really quality activities in the hands of parents.  Seriously, go and check out her site, it is amazing!

Rainforest Clip & Learn 1-10 which was a huge hit, the petite has asked to do this activity over and over and loves using the clothes pins.

Rainforest Animals Montessori Nomenclature Cards

We used the images from the nomenclature cards to create our own rainforest canopy.  We created our rainforest after reading The Magic School Bus Presents The Rainforest and discussed where we thought these animals might live in the rainforest based on the reading of the books.