Beginning Exploration of Animals

The children were very interested in picking up the animals and looking at them. They enjoyed naming the animals and when they didn’t know the animal name they looked to the teacher for support.  They liked touching the unique attributes of the different animals…the elephant’s trunk, the monkey’s tail and the giraffe’s long neck.  They realized these aspects of the animals are what makes them unique. 

The children were also very interested in the movement of the animals.  They liked making the animals stomp.  They were moving the animals around in trucks.  They were making their animals walk across lines of blocks.  They were also putting their animals to sleep.  I would like to explore the concept of movement more with the children…do all animals stomp? Do giraffe’s stomp their feet? Many of the children were using the giraffe to stomp…is it because he is large? How else do animals move? How do big animals move? How do little animals move? How do animals uniquely walk? What do their legs look like when they are moving?