Rainforest Unit

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Rainforest Unit
By Denise

Liza:

Each year I teach a rainforest unit in the spring. I use a program called "Roberto's Rainforest" from Interact Learning. After teaching from the program, I divide my second graders into cooperative learning groups
and each group receives a topic they need to research deeper. I have one group working on the layers, another on the animals, another on plants, still another on the people, etc. When they have written reports on their topics, we transform our classroom into a rainforest. The students make green and brown paper chain for vines. They design and make Kapok trees. Some create a river

of blue art paper that runs through the middle of the room. Students bring stuffed animals (appropriate to the rainforest) and we have monkeys, snakes, etc. hanging around the room. Finally, we spend an entire day presenting our rainforest research to all the elementary classes. The students from the other K-6 classrooms come into our classroom and each group presents their information. We also invite parents to attend a special "performance" in the afternoon just prior to our release time. The kids have a great time and the other classes always seem to learn something they didn't know. It's also fun to see the former second grade students who are now in the older grades remember some of the information or share something they got out of their research that wasn't presented. I hope you can use some of these ideas!

Denise