An engaging and fun Preschool Theme Unit all about Jungle Friends! This Jungle Theme Preschool Unit has a printable counting book along with activities each day to read, make, experience and work! Your preschool will love these fun hands on activities.
Whether you are in the middle of winter or approaching the warmth of summer, your preschool children will love a week or two in the jungle. Figuratively speaking of course.
I’ve put together a fun and engaging jungle preschool theme unit for you and your preschool to enjoy. Have fun with it! If you have fun, your students will have fun too.
What is involved in a Jungle Theme Preschool Unit?
The perfect theme units start with amazing books as the foundation. Reading out loud to the children in your class or home is an incredible gift for them. As you read aloud to a child, you are helping them develop imagination, helping them learn rich vocabulary and language structure, helping them build listening skills and auditory processing skills.
Listening to books read aloud during preschool is essential. So that’s where we start. Each day, you will read together a jungle book. Once you’ve read a book about the theme, the next step is to make something with your hands.
Each day we’ve provided a fun craft to make and enjoy. The kinesthetic process of crafting and creating is also essential for preschool children.
They are building fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, depth perception, and spatial awareness, all while creating something they love. Crafting is the second part of our jungle preschool theme unit.
Hands-On Jungle Fun and Seatwork for your Jungle Preschool Theme
Next, you will complete some kind of activity related to the jungle. It might be science, or a game, or a pretend play activity. These activities broaden your student’s awareness of the world. More importantly, hands-on activities related to the theme help make everything your child is hearing or learning more memorable and more concrete.
Jungle theme activities will bring variety and spice to your preschool jungle theme unit. Finally, with the inspiration of the literature and crafting experience as fuel, you and your child will complete two or three pages of seatwork. I’ve provided a Jungle Friends counting book to help you get started.
You might also add some phonics work such as our Alphabet Pages printable if your child is ready for that. Because preschool children have very short attention spans, this needs to be the shortest part of your school day. Too much seatwork burns children out and once you’ve lost their attention, it doesn’t actually help them learn.
That ability to focus will be your guide. If your child loses interest after one page, be done. Don’t stress him out. If your child is on fire and wants to keep going, do a few more. As long as you are both focused and having fun, seatwork is good.
The Jungle Friends Counting Book for the Jungle Preschool Theme
To make our Jungle Friends Counting book more hands-on and less worksheet – add little jungle counters like these or little stickers to the book experience.
As you count each item on a page, add one counter or sticker to cover it. This helps your child keep track of where you are and adds a kinesthetic element to the seatwork which will help with retention and attention span both.
The Jungle Friends Counting Book is a great way to tie the required subject of math with the fun of your theme. Besides amazing jungle graphics, here’s what your child will find in the free counting book.
- Counting Pages 1-20, with a place to practice writing the number.
- Ten-Square Pages for Numbers 1-20, asking your child to color the appropriate number of squares for each number (or use chart stickers.)
- Counting Activity for numbers 1-10, without the number provided, where your child needs to count and come up with the correct number.
- Ten Writing Practice Pages for Numbers 1-10.
Jungle Preschool Theme Unit: Week One
Day One
Read: Over in the Jungle: A Rainforest Rhyme by Marianne Berkes
Make: A Forest Collage from My First Pallette
Experience: Choose an activity from this jungle party post at Kids Party Cabin
Work: Two or three pages per day in our Jungle Friends Counting Book or your seatwork of choice.
Over the jungle book
Day Two
Read: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Make: A Wild Thing with Shapes from Still Playing School.
Experience: Monster Hands Match from Toddler Approved
Work: Two or three pages per day in our Jungle Friends Counting Book or your seatwork of choice.
Where the Wild Things Are
This iconic story has inspired a movie, an opera, and the imagination of generations. When Max dresses in his wolf suit and causes havoc in the house, his mother sends him to bed. From there, Max sets sail to an island inhabited by the Wild Things, who name him king and share a wild rumpus with him. But then from far away across the world, Max smells good things to eat...
Day Three
Read: Jungle: A Photicular Book by Dan Kainen and Kathy Wollard
Make: Articulated Snake Craft from Kids Craft Room
Experience: Enjoy Jungle Play Dough Play from Pickle Bums
Work: Two or three pages per day in our Jungle Friends Counting Book or your seatwork of choice.
Jungle: A Photicular Book
Discover a world teeming with life. Dense and humid and filled with secrets, rain forests are home to more than half the world's plants and animals. Using unique Photicular technology, Jungle parts the mysterious veil of this sun-dappled land, revealing in color and motion the living exuberance within. Watch a tarantula scuttle across the forest floor. A dancing whipsnake flick its tongue. A Bengal tiger on the prowl, and a brilliant red-and-green macaw soar above the canopy.
Day Four
Read: Roar! A Noisy Counting Book by Pamela Duncan Edwards
Make: Paint Splat Lion by Glued to My Crafts Blog
Experience: Jungle Small World Play from Rainy Day Mum
Work: Two or three pages per day in our Jungle Friends Counting Book or your seatwork of choice.
Roar! A Noisy Counting Book
One day, while great big lions lie basking in the sun, a little lion cub goes off to find some fun.
Roars the little lion cub.
"Who will play with me?
1 red monkey rushes up a tree.
Poor little lion cub! All he wants is someone to play with, but he is simply too noisy. As the little lion cub Roars his way across the grassland, young picture-book readers can count the African animals,identify them by color...and Roars along too.
Day Five
Read: Rumble in the Jungle by Giles Andreae
Make: Jungle Slime from Buggy and Buddy
Experience: Walking in the Jungle Gross Motor and Sequencing Game from the Preschool OT Toolbox
Work: Two or three pages per day in our Jungle Friends Counting Book or your seatwork of choice.
Jungle Preschool Theme Unit: Week Two
Day Six
Read: Little Tiger by Julie Abery
Make: Cardboard Tube Tiger Craft from Creative Family Fun Experience: Animal Camouflage Activity from Stir the Wonder
Work: Two or three pages per day in our Jungle Friends Counting Book or your seatwork of choice.
Little Tiger
Little Tiger goes on an adventure in the jungle, but mama is always close by her cub. Short rhyming lines in this illustrated board book tell a sweet story of youthful adventure and motherly love.
Day Seven
Read: Walking through the Jungle by Stella Blackstone
Make: Abstract Giraffe Painting by Arty Crafty Kids Experience: Crazy Cool Giraffe Science Experiment from Preschool Powol Packets
Work: Two or three pages per day in our Jungle Friends Counting Book or your seatwork of choice.
Walking through the Jungle
Day Eight
Read: What’s Following Us? by Brandy Cooke
Make: Lion Art from Emma Owl Experience: Jungle Animal Yoga for kids from The Inspired Treehouse.
Work: Two or three pages per day in our Jungle Friends Counting Book or your seatwork of choice.
What's Following Us?
Day Nine
Read: Little Monkey by Julie Abery
Make: Bended Leg Monkeys from Artsy Craftsy Mom
Experience: Host a Jungle Scavenger Hunt from Fiver Marigolds.
Work: Two or three pages per day in our Jungle Friends Counting Book or your seatwork of choice.
Little Monkey
Day Ten
Read: The Very Noisy Jungle by Kathryn White
Make: Print out these free jungle masks to have a noisy jungle right in your own home or preschool.
Watch: From Preschool Play and Learn Experience: Jungle Animals and Their Sounds on YouTube.
Work: Two or three pages per day in our Jungle Friends Counting Book or your seatwork of choice.
Very Noisy Jungle
If you take a picture and share them on Instagram make sure to #kidsactivityzone or tag us @kidsactivityzoneblog so we can see them!
Good morning! I was wondering where you got the Number Counting Book pages and if those were available for download.
Thanks!
Yes here is the link! https://kidsactivityzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Jungle-Animals-Counting-Book-FINAL.pdf