Tot School: g is for gorilla (29 months)

Jonathan is 29 Months

This week we finally started on letter "g" and looked at gorillas- as well as golf and grapes. Unfortunately, I'm having a hard time with uploading pictures-- so this will be a picture-free post for the time-being. I made a lot of my own printables for this lesson.

Click here to see the books we read. And click here to see and download our gorilla printables!

Bible 


This week we focused on creation. We read the story from different children's Bibles and did crafts each day. Look for an upcoming post to see what we did!

Pretend Play 


We used a gorilla puppet to introduce the word for the week. We also played with our Little People zoo set (which includes a gorilla figurine).

Motor Skills 


To go along with our theme, we tried to walk like gorillas-- but Jonathan wasn't interested in playing along. He had more fun watching mommy try to walk like a gorilla. :)

A huge hit this week was golf. Jonathan has a set of golf clubs that we got from Oriental Trading Company and he just loves being out in the backyard and hitting the balls up in the air.

For fine motor skills, we did a pre-writing page I made. Jonathan did a great job tracing the lines.We also did a gorilla lacing card I made.

Math 


We did a printable in which we counted how many bananas to give a gorilla. Jonathan has gotten into counting lately, so this was interesting to him.

We also did a gorilla puzzle which I made. Jonathan did a good job matching up the top 3 pieces but had a little more trouble with the bottom 3.

Art 

We colored a gorilla and glued grass to the page in order to create a "habitat" for a gorilla.

Then we also did a gorilla coloring page I created and colored each gorilla a different color.

I also made a Kumon-style coloring page where Jonathan colored in a circle on a gorilla. It gives him fine motor skills practice and he has fun coloring.



I also made a Kumon-style pasting page where I cut out a square and Jonathan matched and pasted it to the gorilla.

Snack 


We ate bananas (since gorillas eat bananas). We also enjoyed some grapes this week.

I'm linking up to:

Link & Learn @ No Time for Flashcards

Tot School @ 1+1+1=1

Gorilla Printables

I created my first set of printables to go along with our "g is for gorilla" unit. If you want to download and use them yourself, I'd be honored. They are available as a free download on Scribd. Enjoy!

g is for gorilla- books

Image Source

We started letter g with "G is for gorilla".

 Little Gorilla by Ruth Bornstein

We've owned this book for a while now and it's such a sweet story that I was happy to pull it out for our gorilla day. It's the story about a little gorilla who well loved by everyone in the jungle. But little gorilla grows up and gets big-- and everyone still loves him! It's a very reassuring tale for toddlers who are quickly becoming big boys and girls. Jonathan likes this story and it stuck with him so much that he even narrated it back to me. We definitely recommend this one!

Go Go Gorillas by Julia Durango

This is a fun tale in which the king of the gorillas, King Big Daddy, sends a mouse messenger to gather his gorilla relatives for an important surprise. The rhyming text tells how the messenger approaches each gorilla and the method of transportation each gorilla uses to get there: "First to get the message was Big Daddy's nephew Ike 'I'll pack a pickle sandwich then I'll ride there on my bike." The refrain is repeated after every other gorilla "Go-go gorillas! Gotta go, gorillas, go!" The gorillas ride scooters, pogo sticks and hot air balloons as they travel to the Gorilla Villa to hear King Big Daddy's news. It's a fun story and Jonathan got into saying "Go-go gorillas!" It's also a great book to teach ordinal numbers. Jonathan doesn't grasp that concept yet, but I'll have to remember this book when we get there.



One Gorilla: A Counting Book by Atsuko Morozumi

In this award-winning book, the narrator lists things that he loves, starting with one gorilla and progressing to ten cats. The beautiful ethereal illustrations show the various animals in different habitat-- and always include one gorilla. The animals are not always obvious, so you can have fun searching through the pictures to find the animals. The last page ends up with a gorilla fast asleep. Jonathan had fun with this book, although he couldn't always find the different animals.

Note: We also checked out Anthony Browne's Gorilla. This beautifully illustrated book, however, had too sad of a tone for a child Jonathan's age. 

Stay tuned for our activities and some printables!

G is for Gorilla @ Totally Tots