In the classroom that I assist in we have an awesome loft. It is often used as a kitchen. The kids love playing up on the loft the way that it is. However, when I saw it the first time I saw a blank canvas and so much more than your typical "playing house" dramatic play. One of the students in our class suggested we turn the loft into a zoo this month. The lead teacher has a huge tub of old beanie babies that would be perfect for it! So without further adieu, welcome to our zoo!
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| I love having the students use their own writing! | |
I decided to start by creating the different habitats as a background. We have a desert, a backyard, a rainforest, a savanna, the arctic and an ocean. I was originally happy with this, but something was still missing. I decided to have students create a few animals for the different habitats and use their own writing to label. Here are a few samples of their work.
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| A cheetah was caught creeping through the grass in our savanna. |
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| A tiger stalking it's prey in the rainforest. |
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| A seahorse clinging to some seaweed in the ocean. |
Here's how our loft turned out. The students absolutely love sorting the animals into their proper habitats and learning about new animals. Who knew beanie babies could be so useful??
I wonder what else I could turn our loft into...
