Wild Animal Count Up

 Counting Animals

I've often referred to this collection of cuties as jungle animals, but I've seen the error of my ways and will henceforth be referring to them as Wild :) Upcoming videos will even mention their various habitats, like the savannah, plains, rainforests, etc....

In this counting rhyme I've included some related vocabulary like roar, swing, stomp, snap and dive.  Let's keep things simple, right?  We name our animals, we count, we name our numbers...  Of course you can make this longer by pointing out various features of the animals, like colors, body parts, habitats, etc.  

But sometimes you just need something short and sweet, and I think this short counting rhyme fits the bill.  I hope you and the kids enjoy it!

 

Looking for more circle time and storytime fun?  More videos are right here!

Jungle Friends Felt Board Video

Editing:  Wait a minute, these cute critters are actually wild animals, not jungle!  Their habitats are the savannah, plains, rainforest and more--so I'm going to stop calling them jungle animals :)  AND, I've made some changes and updated these cuties!  So though the set below has changed, and the links will take you to a new Wild Animal set, the early math and early literacy aspects remain the same!

Got jungle creature fans on your hands?  Here's a simple way to use my Jungle Critters Set at home, at circle time, at story time...  Build those math skills!  Build those early literacy skills!  Have fun!

Love that jungle felt set?  You can get it in my shop, and it comes with the lyrics to more rhymes and songs, plus a list of animal/jungle books to go along with it!  (I do the work for you ;) )  Click the cuties below to shop:

Like what you see here?  

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 Pinterest, Facebook, and the FF blog--check them out!

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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.  

Monkeys!

I've had various versions of Five Little Monkeys Swinging in a Tree/Jumping on the Bed in my classroom over the years.  But a couple of the monkeys seem to have gone missing from the tree set, and I was never that fond of the laminated version I made of the bed set, so...

Mel's desk and Storytime Katie to the rescue!

I'll use my alligator hand puppet with this set, but he's in the puppet basket at school right now so he's not pictured here...

After making these I remembered seeing Amy's super cute monkey version of The Itsy Bitsy Spider over at One Little Librarian.  All I needed was a lion to complete the set.  I googled "cute simple lion clipart" and used the first image that came up as my pattern.  The results and the words to the song are below.  I can't wait to use them! ( I also have a bunch of foam letters that I'm going to put out on a table with the tree and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom with my three-year-olds next week.  Should be a fun time! )

This particular set isn't for sale, but please check out my shop with many of my other sets:

The itsy bitsy monkey climbed up the coconut tree.

Down came a coconut and hit him on the knee -- OWWW!
Out came a lion shaking his mighty mane
& the itsy bitsy monkey went up the tree again.

Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Laura at Literacious!  You can also find more fantastic ideas at Flannel Friday's Pinterest pages, or Flannel Friday's Facebook Page --check them out!