This Little Jungle Critter...


Okay, so really some of these are sub-Saharan critters.  Lions, zebras and giraffes don't live in jungles, right?  Monkeys do...and crocodiles, and jungle elephants.  But anyway, on with the rhyme!
 I realize my giraffe is missing some important parts!  They're going on tomorrow :)

You can read the background story below if you're interested, but if not, let's just cut to the chase!


Choose five of your animals and line 'em up.  Put your sub-Saharan scene a bit away from your animals, and commence your chant:

This little monkey went to market.
This little lion stayed home.
This little zebra ate grass.
And this little elephant ate none.
And this little crocodile went 
"snap snap snap snap!" 
all the way home!

Move the crocodile to the picture as you're saying the last few lines, then move him back to the front of the line of animals and start over.  Always put your returning animal at the front of the line, so that the next time you do the rhyme you'll have a new animal at the end of the line--that's the one that goes "all the way home".  

You can really use this rhyme with any set of five animals--farm, zoo, jungle, pets, etc.  You could do it with bugs, even.  And sea creatures! Just make sure you know what everyone eats and what noise or movement they make before you get started :)

A new version of this set is available in my shop!




The Flannel Friday roundup is being hosted this week by Kate at Felt Board Magic!  You'll also find other Flannel Friday goodies at PinterestFacebook, and the FF blog--check them out!
_________________________________________________________________________________

Background Story: A few weeks ago I was playing with one of my two year olds with these sorting farm animals:
  
We were lining them up, building homes for them, making them slide down ramps, and just generally having a good old time with them.  (They are great, and most sorting toys are too small for below age three, so I especially love these guys!) At one point I started doing the This Little Piggy rhyme, but the row of animals I was pointing at had only one piggy, so I substituted the other animals names and sounds, and did the rhyme that way.  It was a hit--I had to do it at least 17 times before I was allowed to play anywhere else!

Yesterday when I pulled out my Herman the Worm flannel board story, I recalled the hacked version of This Little Piggy rhyme and tried it with the Herman and his friends.  It worked, and I decided I wanted a set to devote to it.  I went for jungle animals because there are already so many farm songs and poems swimming around in my head, and I wanted to change things up a bit.  


No comments:

Post a Comment