Rainforests

We are now studying Rainforests, which is a spin off of studying about chocolate.

Non-fiction:

• Rain Forests (a Magic Tree House Research Guide) by Osborne & Osborne - as usual, a great book with an overall view of Rainforests - includes chapters on layers, plants, creatures, people, gifts & saving the rain forest
• About the Rain Forest (We Both Read) by Johanasen & McKay - We've never read one of these before. The left side is for the parent to read & the right side is shorter for the child to read. It has some great photos & information about some neat animals, plants, etc.
• Exploring the Rain Forest" by Klum & Odoo - great longer book (62 pages); I was surprised that Alexandra picked it up & wanted me to read it & sat through all but the last 3 pages! Neat information about different animals, etc, & it's told as a story about the author's trip through the rain forest with his photographer
• The Great Kapok Tree by Cherry - tells the story of a man who is going to cut down a tree in the rain forest & falls asleep - the animals then talk to him & when he wakes up he leaves the forest & doesn't cut down the tree
• Inside the Amazing Amazon by Don Lessem - we didn't read this book, but it has great, fold-out pictures of the different layers of the Amazon - it also has about 8-10 fairly short descriptions of various plants & animals that live in each layer - we used it like an "I Spy" book
• If I Ran the Rain Forest (The Cat in the Hat's Learning Library) by Worth - I just discovered this series of Cat in the Hat books and we are loving them - they actually go into quite a bit of detail & are fun
• Red-Eyed Tree Frog by Cowley - cute, short book about a tree frog and what he eats for dinner & what might eat him - great pictures!

Videos:

• Really Wild Animals: Totally Tropical Rain Forest (National Geographic Kids Video) - cute video with "Spin" the Earth narrating. Definitely made to entertain children with humor while educating them (& us!) about Rainforests.
• Biomes of the World in Action: Rainforest Biomes (Schlessinger) - We've been happy with most of the videos from Schlessinger, and this one is no exception. It says "Grades 5-8", but my dd5 really enjoyed it! There is also a teacher's guide included and also available on-line.
• Wonders of the Rain Forest (Zoo Life with Jack Hanna)

Well, this is one of those studies that kind of fizzled out for me. We were trying to do an Evan-Moor pocket book about rain forests, but I have lost interest. I told Alexandra that whenever she wanted to do more, just let me know. On Thursday, we plan on seeing the IMAX film, Bugs!, about insects in the rain forest. That'll probably be our last thing for now. I'm kind of sad that I don't even have any pictures to show! Maybe we'll do some more later...