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The Classroom Package: Related Activities and Lessons/Reading Fun

Rain Forest Sound Image (Music)

Step 1: Prepare animal sounds: Assign a third of your class to be crickets (chirp sounds), another third to be tree frogs (peeping sounds), a sixth to be birds (whistling, hooting, squawking, etc.), a few students to be small monkeys (squeaks and squeals) and a few to be howler monkeys (roaring sounds). Add any other animals you wish. Choose sounds to represent each group, set limits for each (loudness, duration, etc.) and teach students signals that indicate when they should begin and when they should stop making their assigned sound.

Step 2: Prepare rain sounds: You will lead students making the following sounds: i) rubbing hands together; ii) snapping fingers; iii) slapping shoulders; and iv) slapping thighs. Point your hands to the left of the students on the left side of your classroom before you make the first sound and instruct your students not to make the sound until your hands pass over them. Begin making the first sound and slowly move your hands from left to right until all your students are making the sound. Tell your students to keep making the sound until your hands pass over them again. Pointing your hands towards the left side of the room again, make the second sound and slowly move your hands from left to right. Repeat for each sound. This will sound like a rain storm in the rain forest getting louder and louder. After the downpour repeat the sounds in reverse order to simulate the rain slowing down and stopping.

Step 3: Put the two together. Tell your students that after a rain storm, the animals become more active. Do the rain storm activity and then give the signal for the crickets to start chirping, followed by the tree frogs, etc. until the forest is alive with animal sounds. One by one give the students the signal to stop making their sounds. When all is quiet follow up with your favorite song about the rain forest or another activity.

Tip: You could do this activity each time you begin one of the 'adventures' to the rain forest. Tell students, 'The rain will magically carry us off to the rain forest; when we get there, we'll hear the animals and then begin the adventure.' You could end the session with a rain storm to carry you back to the classroom.' You may also want to make animal masks to be used in this activity.

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Amazon Rain Forest	The Galapagos Islands
Where to Begin	Where to Begin: Introductory Social Studies and Math Activities
Related Activities and Lessons	Links to the Best Galapagos Islands Web Sites on the Internet
Reading Fun	Spanish-English Animal Cognates
Other Fun Stuff	Additional Classroom Resources
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