Carnival of the Animals

It's "Carnival of the Animals" time again in 1st grade! We have spent the last couple of weeks reading the book and listening to each animal. A few years ago, I posted what I do for each animal. You can see that post here: Carnival of the Animals. I've kept most of the activities the same, but I did make a few changes after seeing some posts on Pinterest. Here are the ones I changed.

Tortoises: For the tortoises, we did a slow motion cup stacking activity. Each student got 5 cups and had to stack them slowly into a tall tower. The second time we listened, they partnered up and had to stack a 10 cup tower.  This was a lot of fun!

Aquarium: The first time we listened, we picked out the long sounds in the piece and then discovered that they were whole notes. Every time we heard one, we made a long sweeping motion with our arms. The second time we listened, the kids partnered up and got to blow bubbles on the whole note parts (because bubbles kind of look like whole notes and fish blow bubbles!). Their partners helped by making the long sweeping motion with their arms. Each student blew two bubbles and then switched off with their partner.

Birds: Normally I did ribbon dancing for the aquarium, but since I wasn't doing that this year, I added it in to the bird piece. They used the ribbons to make the birds fly up and swoop down low.

Here are some pictures from our other animals.

Elephants:

 

 

Hens and Roosters:

The hens talking



The roosters showing their muscles to try to attract the hens!

  

Cuckoo in the Woods