Preschool Rainforest Theme: All About Anacondas!
What’s the largest snake in the world? An anaconda! This week’s creative preschool learning theme is the RAINFOREST. We chose to learn about anacondas by watching different rainforest videos and reading about them on our ipad mini. We learned lots of fun things about how they look, where they live, and how big they are. Then we made our own anaconda counting busy bag that also incorporated fine motor skills.
Fun Facts for Kids
They live in the Amazon jungles in South America and love to be in the water.
They are super quiet making them hard to find.
Anacondas are an average of 20 feet long. They are the largest snake but not the longest.
Some weigh as much as 550 pounds!
They are usually dark green in color, have 2 rows of black spots on their back and white marks on the sides
Read more about green anacondas over on the National Geographic website and SoftSchools.com!
Anaconda Counting Busy Bag
Supplies Needed:
- pasta that is tube shaped
- green paint (or use food coloring method)
- 2 baggies – we used snack size
- glitter – optional
- plastic lacing cord
- green button
- teeny googly eyes
- red ribbon (or a strip of red construction paper or similar)
Place 20+ pasta pieces inside a small Ziploc baggie with green paint and a drop of water. Close the baggie and have your preschooler smush it, swirl it, and any other fun way to get the paint on the pasta. Once the pasta is colored with green, add a dash of glitter. Represent the anaconda’s spots with black glitter if you have it. We used a darker green color for ours.
While waiting for the pasta to dry, get your lacing cord ready by cutting a strip long enough to fit at least 20 pastas on it plus extra for attaching the button head. The head for our anaconda is made from a jumbo bead that is a green, tear drop shape. Green craft foam would also work. Tie the button to one end and add the teeny googly eyes. Use a permanent black marker for the eyes as an alternative. Glue on a red tongue.
Place all the items in a small Ziploc baggie for easy playing! Preschoolers can reinforce counting to 20 (or more if you’d like). I choose to make 20 since anacondas are an average of 20 feet long. Change it up by asking them to make an anaconda that is ‘X’ number of pastas long.
Since anacondas are hard to find, play a game of ‘Hide the Anaconda!’
Besides counting, this fun anaconda busy bag helps improve fine motor skills with threading the pasta on the lacing cord. What ways have you use to help improve fine motor skills in preschoolers? For our last creative preschool learning theme, we did a fun spiderweb lacing and counting activity. Little Sister has also enjoyed our bead sensory bin that also makes a great fine motor activity.
Both Big Brother and Little Sister thought this video of The Green Anaconda Song was hilarious! It’s just a silly song that Little Sister kept singing even after it was finished. It shares some fun facts for kids. They especially loved the end it poked fun at how long anacondas are.
Our creative preschool learning theme this week is all about the rainforest! Head over to our preschool buddies’ posts for more fun ways to learn about the rainforest:
Rainforest Math Clip Cards | School Time Snippets (Yay, a new preschool buddy!)
Paper Plate Macaw Craft | I Heart Crafty Things – includes a free pattern!
Build a Digital Rainforest | Hand Made Kids Art – excited to check this website out!
Printable Rainforest Coloring Prompts | A Little Pinch of Perfect – open-ended art activity!
See you in 2 weeks for an Outer Space Theme!
Love the sparkly noodle body! Great idea!
Thanks Kristina!