Amazon Rainforest Activities for Homeschoolers
The first of our ecosystems unit studies is the Amazon Rainforest. I love this topic as it brings together so many different areas of study and we can explore an ecosystem and look at a huge part of the world as well as combine some of our geography activities. So here you go some Amazon Rainforest Activities for homeschoolers and home educators.
Amazon Rainforest Resources
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Gather your resources before you start learning about the Amazon Rainforest. We’ve picked out some of our favourites from Books to Games and more.
Amazon Rainforest Books for Kids
One of the first things I like to do is gather our books together or head to the library – here our pick of the best Amazon Rainforest books for Kids it covers fiction and non-fiction with a wide range of reading abilities and ages covered.
But if I only had to pick 3 that are great for all ages I’d pick these ones.
The Explorer by Katherine Rundell was a favourite of my kids the first time we explored the theme of the Amazon Rainforest. They loved this tale, the vivid descriptions of animals and atmosphere led to some very creative descriptive writing.
With an updated cover the DK Amazon Rainforest is a brilliant non-fiction book to supplement any learning about the Amazon Rainforest, from the river to the animals that inhabit the rainforest there is lots of information inside to read.
Don’t study the Amazon rainforest without reading The Great Kapok Tree, weaving a bit about the ecosystem and environmental issues in this area it is fantastic.
Games to Play whilst Learning About the Amazon Rainforest
For 8+ year olds (although you can play with younger kids if you partner up easily) Canopy is a fun card game all about the Rainforest. We really enjoyed playing this and although we have long finished the topic of the Amazon it’s still very much a favourite game of ours to play.
Science Sets that Link with the Amazon
One of the smaller animals but one you are most likely to see in the rainforest are the leaf cutter ants. Ants are fascinating from how they live to how they communicate there is a lot to learn and you can start off with your own ant farm. It’s amazing to see the colonies at work and observe how they all are part of the community.
The Wild Environmental Science set on Climate Change is absolutely brilliant. It’s not specifically about the Rainforest and the Amazon, instead it’s more global. But as the Amazon are the lungs of our planet it’s great to get this set started and explore it within this unit study and carry it on further as you investigate more.
Literacy in the Rainforest
The topic of the Amazon and specifically the Rainforest is perfect for writing some fiction and non-fiction. Factfiles, lapbooks and notebooking are ideal ways to get kids to start developing their factual writing.
Reports and diaries of how they may experience the rainforest as an explorer, or indigenous person living is another great style of writing to explore.
Then descriptive writing as mentioned above – we found The Explorer book fantastic for helping to develop this and used the images within the DK Eyewitness guide to the Amazon Rainforest to aid us.
Include some creative writing in your literacy – we’ve got a fantastic set of rainforest-themed creative writing prompts for kids that comes with a FREE printable pack in our creative writing subscriber library.
Have a look at this ActionAid Amazon Rainforest pack for kids (aimed at 7 to 11 year olds) there are some really good persuasive writing activities included which we dipped into especially when talking about the environmental aspects of the Amazon Rainforest.
The Nightzookeeper has some fantastic lessons that help develop all of these areas and whilst focusing on this topic I was able to direct my youngest that used it extensively to improve her literacy skills to areas that connected with what we were doing.
Rainforest Activities for Kids
There are so many different activities you can do about the Amazon rainforest here are just a few we tried and enjoyed.
Amazon Rainforest Activities
- Make a rainforest terrarium
- Explore the different zones of the Amazon Rainforest with this fantastic model that you can make with your kids.
- Look at the art of Henri-Rousseau and in particular the Tucán painting to create some wax resist artwork like this.
- Cook plantains one of the many different foods that you can find in the Amazon Rainforest.
Amazon Rainforest Crafts
- Make a Climbing Tree Frog
- Create a sloth bookmark
- Make a Toilet Paper Roll Macaw
- Create a rain stick that sounds just like the rainforest rains
What to Study Next
The Amazon Rainforest is a great starting point for various different areas check out some of those that we thought of below:
- Countries of the Amazon Rainforest individual country studies could be carried out
- Brazil
- Bolivia
- Peru
- Ecuador
- Colombia
- Venezuela
- Guyana
- Suriname
- French Guiana
- Rivers – as the 2nd longest and largest river in the world the Amazon river is great for a river unit study
- More Ecosystems and Biomes
- Temperate Rainforest
- Dessert
- Coral Reefs
- Beach
- Polar