![]() Provide additional resources such as a small plants and bark to add to the trays or tyres. If your outdoor space is mostly tarmac, use builders trays to make small world jungles or make landscapes by filling tyres with compost and planting with grass and adding small world jungle animals. ![]() Create maps to follow on safari and take photos of animals you ‘see’. Ask the children to make a trail round the jungle using arrows made of twigs. A small tent erected in the area will make an exciting place to share stories, especially if you include torches and mosquito nets. You might be able to include a climbing frame as part of the jungle. Use camouflage net and bamboo or bead curtains to contain the jungle. There’s huge potential for developing a jungle in outdoor areas. Paint some stones and turn them into ugly bugs. Use the pebbles to outline a pathway through the jungle for the children to follow. Encourage the children to handle the pebbles and talk about their colour, size and texture pour water over some of them and discuss the difference between the wet pebbles and the dry. Gather some smooth pebbles (the ones from garden centres are very good). Make number labels to hang in the jungle area and include a 1–10 number track to walk along. Provide other collections of appealing and stimulating objects for children to talk about, count, rearrange and put in order. Children can use their collection of twigs and sticks to build a beetle house. Add mirrors of different shapes and sizes to reflect the collections. Lay out travelling rugs in the jungle for children to sit on and show them how to use hand-held and standing magnifiers and viewers to reveal any texture, patterns or marks on the items. Seeds, pods, conkers and cones, as well as leaves and twigs, can probably be easily collected by children from the local area. Natural resources provide a wonderful starting point for problem-solving, sorting and classifying in the jungle. Use the language of measurement to talk about how long a tail needs to be. ![]() Create animal role-play outfits from pieces of fake fur fabric with Velcro on the corners so that they adhere to the front of the children’s clothes, and together make animal tails from stuffing old tights with crumpled newspaper. Make sure that there are enough binoculars and cameras on hand to view any jungle animals. Cut out a lookout window and resource with animal posters and clipboards for children to record what animals they ‘see’. Use an extra-large piece of cardboard to make an animal hide for children to sit inside and pretend to see wild animals. Hang cut-out spirals from trees as snakes. Mix together PVA glue, paint, sawdust and a little water to make textured paint for trees. Paint long grass by winding elastic bands around a cylinder such as a rolling pin, rolling it in paint and then over a long strip of paper. Use your creative area to produce scenery for the jungle. Extend children’s vocabulary by offering measurement words, questions and statements such as “I wonder if the curtain is long enough?” or “Do you think the cave is too narrow for both bears to live in?” Resource the area with materials such as tablecloths, sheets and blankets for constructing home-made tents or caves for stuffed toy jungle animals to live in. Give them time to explore and discuss how they might be used. Invite children to create a jungle environment from natural and found materials. When we provide children with imaginative indoor and outdoor props it stimulates their creativity and supports their learning, and nowhere does this show more than in problem-solving and in developing mathematical skills and understanding. There will be children in your setting who are entranced by monkeys, elephants, tigers, lions and other wild animals, so why not set up a jungle scene? A fascination with jungle animals combined with children’s normal curiosity makes it an ideal focus for experiencing maths.Īll children learning maths need opportunities to experiment with a variety of materials, including found and recycled items such as boxes, buttons and string to experience shape and construction and natural items such as pebbles, twigs and shells to arrange and count, as well as collections of the more structured maths wood or plastic materials. Venture into the jungle with Carole Skinner’s menagerie of animal-themed activities…
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