Welcome to the Jungle!

The Jacksonville Jaguars!

That was the first thing that I thought of when I saw that we were doing the letter "J".

Let's just jump right in!  On Monday I like to do a craft that is in the shape of the letter, or reinforces the letter.

There are a lot of cute ideas on pinterest.com for jaguars, and the letter "J".  I kind of combined them, and also incorporated the number of the week.

Yes, I'm showing you mine, because my kids  didn't quite get the idea of the spots.  They were all in one place.

Like I've said before, I love hands-on learning.  So, I decided what's more fun than juicing!?  And we're in Florida, so what on earth could we juice?  Oh, so many things!

So, I got together every citrus I could get my hands on.

I got:

1 Lemon

1 Lime

1 Grapefruit

2 (organic, home-grown by a colleague) Oranges

2 Clementines

One of the other teachers had this great antique juicer, where instead of twisting, you squeeze down on two arms.  It was perfect, because the kids each got to take turns squeezing one of the fruit.

After all the fruit was squeezed out into different containers, we placed them in order of lightest to darkest.

After that, they got to taste each one, and then we put them in order of most sour to sweetest.

I wish you could've seen their faces!  So very cute!

Another craft that we did that week was making "jewelry" (bracelets).  It was perfect for fine motor skills, as well as creating/recognizing patterns.

jax4kids.com produces wonderful books for the children of Jacksonville on a regular basis.  I love them, because they always have to do with things that Jacksonville is known for, or proud of.  One morning, I put some of their books out as inspiration, and asked the kids to draw pictures of their favorite thing about Jacksonville.  Please let me share with you some of their art work.

This is the River City CLock Tower

This is Th Dames Point Bridge.

This is a Jaguar throwing a football.

Naturally, the beach!

Jaguars' Stadium.  (There's even a blimp!)

I was so impressed with their detailed work!  There are so many extraordinary and fun things to do and see in Jacksonville, so if you're reading and you've never been, you should make your way down (or up) here!

Finally, on Friday we had a letter "J" party.  I asked all the kids to wear something that started with the letter "J".  Such as: jeans, jumper, jewelry, jaguars jersey, any kind of jersey, jeggings (although, I was keeping my fingers crossed that none of my 4 year-old would show up in jeggings, and thank God they didn't.)

Then, we had snacks that started with "J"!  Jelly beans, Jello, juice, PB&Js, and we had it all on jungle themed paper plates!

There are so many fun "J" things to do out there, and all my kiddos seemed to have a great time!