Learning About the Alphabet: J is for Jaguar

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Over the course of twenty-six posts, I will introduce my own simple lessons for the letters of the alphabet. I will provide ideas and suggestions for a week's worth of activities.

For the letter J, we focused upon jaguars. 

Jaguars are one of the many big cats that I absolutely love! Big cats include lions, tigers, leopards, snow leopards, lynx, cheetah, and the jaguar. They all below to the genus Panthera. Big cats live in a variety of habitats and across many of the continents (except Europe, Australia, and Antarctica). 

What is the difference between the big cats and the small cats, like the house cat or the jaguarundi? Most big cats can roar while small cats purr. Big cats show affection in other ways such as the 'chuff' sound of a tiger.

Jaguar Facts 

• Carnivorous 
• Weighs 100 to 250 pounds 
• Can live up to 12 to 15 years 
• They are the only big cat found in the Americas 
• Only tigers and lions are bigger than jaguars 
• They are good swimmers and will hunt in the water 
• They face a number of threats in their natural habitat that are causing their numbers to decline 
• They live alone 
• A female jaguar will usually give birth to one to four cubs who will stay with her for two years or more learning how to be a jaguar 

clipart from wpclipart.com

Projects 

When studying cats, there are some cool activities you can accomplish with your children. Such as filling out a chart with the names of big cats and little cats. (Download a copy here: A Mom's Quest to Teach.)

Books 

 

 

Activities 

Telling Spotted Cats Apart 

How do you tell a leopard from a jaguar? What about the cheetah, snow leopard, or clouded leopard? For some of them, you can look at its natural habitat to determine which type of big cat it is, while for others you might need to look a bit more closely at the shape of their spots. 

Snow leopards are white in color, so they are the easiest to distinguish. Next easiest is either the cheetah – which is identified by its long, lean body and the skinny black stripes on its face that look like black tear lines, or the clouded leopard – which is smaller and has much larger spot groupings. 

Leopards are a bit smaller than jaguars. Jaguars have more muscle than leopards and usually weigh twice as much as leopards. They also have an extra spot(s) in the center of their spots.

Jaguar Paper Bag Puppet 

Materials 

• Brown paper lunch bag 
• Construction paper - orange, white, black, gold, tan 
• Crayons, markers, or colored pencils 
• Glue stick and/or white glue 
• Paint (orange and black) and paintbrushes (optional) 

Steps

1. Gather your materials.

2. Have your children cut out the pieces you will need or have them pre-cut for your children.

3. Color or paint the brown paper bag orange. If you paint it, you will need to wait till it dries to complete the next steps.

4. Glue on the head piece to the top of the brown paper bag.

5. Attach the mouth piece under the flap of the brown paper bag.

6. Glue on the eyes, nose, spots, ears, and teeth.

7. Draw on whiskers.

8. Draw spots on the body of the jaguar. Make sure you put some spots inside the circles of spots or rosettes.

Other Topics 

J is for Jump Rope 

Introduce the letter J with a simple craft for your preschooler. 

Jam & Juice 

Taste different flavors of jam or juice with your children. 
Try your hand at making homemade juice or make juice popsicles. 
Visit a local farmer's market to sample local jams. 
Go to a local farm to pick fruits to make your own jam or juice. 

Resources 

All About Animals 

Sometimes you need a short homeschool course to include into your homeschool curriculum. SchoolhouseTeachers.com has the perfect 14 unit course entitled All About Animals. In the class, your first or second grader will learn about jaguars, ladybugs, squirrels, baby animals, and more. Your child will learn about the habits and habitats of the animals while reading online books, complete puzzle pages, and journal about what they have learned. You and your children will explore your own backyard and imagine what life is like for a snake in the rainforest, too. 

Jelly Fish, Jello, and Jesus: Letter J Preschool Activities and Printables 

Are you looking to explore more letter J topics with your preschooler? In this post from The Schoolin' Swag blog, you find lots of fun ideas including what to serve for snack. I also love connecting your letter J lessons with stories from the Bible including Jonah. How fun! 

Jenny Jaguar Week 

If you want to travel to a distant land while studying the letter J, visit Teaching with Faith's Jenny Jaguar Week post to go to Japan. I also love the idea of checking out a web cam to see jellyfish at an aquarium if you can't see them in person. 

Crafts: J is for Jump Rope

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Do your children enjoy jumping rope? Or perhaps you call it skipping rope? For the sake of this craft, we are going to call it, "jump rope," because J is for Jump Rope!

Background

Rope has been used for skipping for a long time. There have been examples of rope-jumping for fun and exercise in Ancient Phoenicia, Ancient Egypt, and Ancient Greece. Even though jumping rope today is often done mostly by girls, it was an activity in history that was primarily done by boys and men.

The activity of jumping rope spread through the ancient world to Medieval Europe and eventually to America, possibly by the Dutch. In fact, the version of Double Dutch has been attributed to the theory that it might have originated among immigrants from the Netherlands in Colonial America. In Double Dutch, two long jump ropes are used which are turned in opposite directions and more than one player may jump at the same time.

Jump rope can be done by oneself or with friends. Those friends can either turn the rope or jump in depending upon the length of the rope or the style of jump rope being done.

Activities

In addition to the traditional ways to jump rope, you can incorporate a variety of other games using the jump rope and skipping or jumping.

PLEASE NOTE: Exercise caution when playing any games with jump ropes. Do not leave children unattended.

• Snake in the Grass: Two children move the jump rope back and forth along the ground or floor while one child tries to jump over the snake without touching the rope
• Math Facts: Skip while reciting math facts such as counting by twos, threes, or other numbers 
• Skip to a Song: Jump rope to the rhythm of a popular nursery rhyme or song
• Helicopter: One child slowly spins the jump rope in a circle along the ground or floor while the others form a circle around that child and try to jump over the rope as it comes their way 

J Is for Jump Rope Craft 

Materials

• Construction paper 
• Scissors
• Glue sticks and white glue 
• Yarn or rope

Steps

1. Gather all materials.

2. Draw and cut out letter J on construction paper.

3. Glue the letter J onto a second sheet of construction paper.

4. Cut pieces of the yarn to attach to the letter J.

5. Glue the yarn (or rope) to the letter J.

Looking for more crafting posts? Please check out my posts: E is for Enderman and A is for Alligator.

Crafts: I is for Iron

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What exactly makes Minecraft such an intriguing game to both children and adults? I don't know if I have the perfect answer. The fact that the game allows for such creativity may be one of the reasons. It also inspires our children outside the actual game. They love when I create Minecraft-themed crafts for them to complete such as E for Enderman and R for Redstone. It even encourages trips to sites where people can learn more about mining like Eckley Miners' Village.

Iron Ore

Iron ore is an important mineral block found in Minecraft. When smelted, it becomes an iron ingot which can be used to craft tools and armor. In the real world, iron ore or iron minerals range from dark grey, bright yellow, a deep purple to red. None of them actually have the beige color of iron ore in Minecraft.

There are four main types of iron ore deposits:

• magnetite deposits 
• titanomagnetite deposits 
• massive hematite deposits 
• pisolitic ironstone deposits 

While iron ore is used directly to make items in Minecraft, in the real world the majority of iron produced is used to make steel. (In some modpacks for Minecraft, players will use iron to produce steel.) 

And just what is steel used for? An excellent question to ask your children. Perhaps this will even develop into a great research project! Some of the many uses of steel include the building of automobiles, locomotives, beams for buildings, paper clips, tools, and more. 

This lesson lends itself to examining rocks and identifying gems and precious stones.

How to Make an 'I is for Iron' Craft

Materials 

• Construction paper or Craft paper 
• Scissors
• Glue and/or glue sticks
• Markers or crayons  

Steps 

1. Gather all your materials.

2. Trace a large letter I. If your children are ready, have them cut out the letter on their own.

3. Glue the letter I onto the large construction paper.

4. Cut out small beige colored squares.

5. Glue the beige colored squares onto the letter I to create iron ore from Minecraft.

6. After your project is dry, display proudly in your home.

Learning About the Alphabet: H is for Hippo

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Over the course of twenty-six posts, I will introduce my own simple lessons for the letters of the alphabet. I will provide enough ideas and suggestions for a week's worth of activities.

For the letter H, we focused upon the Hippopotamus.

The hippopotamus is a member of the ungulate family of mammals. Ungulates are browsing or grazing mammals with odd or even-toed hooves. Another ungulate that starts with the letter h is horse.

Hippo Facts 

• Hippos are an average of 11.5 feet in length 
• Hippos can weigh around 5,300 pounds 
• They can submerge underwater for up to five minutes by closing their nostrils 
• They are herbivores – eating only plants 
• Baby hippos ride piggyback on their moms in deep water 
• Aggressive behavior occurs mostly in the dry season when it is crowded and breeding season is occurring 
• Mother and calf are closely bonded 

Coloring Pages

Coloring.WS from DLTK's Hippo Coloring Pages

Paint the World Super Coloring's Hippo Coloring Pages

Projects

The Hippopotamus Sun Catcher 

It is always so much fun to see projects coming together!

This was such an easy craft to make and 

looks so pretty in the window!

Hippo Paper Bag Puppet

I printed out the template for a paper bag craft from Scholastic for our children to color, cut out, and then glue onto a brown paper lunch bag. They even made up a hippo-themed song using their puppets.

 

Letter H Handwriting Practice

I printed out several different worksheets to practice writing the letter H for both our children. They then drew their own houses on the back of those worksheets.

Books

There are some fantastic fiction and non-fiction books available to teach your children about hippos and other topics.

    

    

Featured Shape

Ovals are a great shape to focus upon because there are so many curved shapes that make up a hippo's body while you are drawing it.

Activities

Who remembers playing Hungry Hungry Hippos as a kid? We did not have a copy of the game but my cousin did and I remember the noise the marbles made as you snapped them up.

   

Other Topics

Houses & Habitats 

To go hand in hand with the Hippo topic, you can teach your children about their habitat in Africa.

Build a house out of available craft materials: Provide your children with a box full of things like craft sticks, pom-poms, playdoh, glue, construction paper, and more! Let their creativity shine!

Design your own house

Design a house out of construction paper: I drew several different shapes onto pieces of extra construction paper, asked our children to cut the shapes out, and then they turned them into a house.

Be sure to check out these posts, too!

  

Resources

National Geographic: Hippopotamus 

Learning About the Alphabet: G is for Giraffe

This post contains affiliate links. For more information please see my Terms of Use and Disclosure Policy page. Thank you.

Over the course of twenty-six posts, I will introduce my own simple lessons for the letters of the alphabet. I will provide ideas and suggestions for a week's worth of activities.

For the letter G, we focused upon Giraffes.

Giraffes have always been one of my favorite animals. I fortunate enough that my mom worked at the zoo when I was growing up and then I worked at the same zoo for a number of years in the Education department. This allowed me the opportunity to see the zoo's three giraffes up close and personal over the years.

Giraffe Facts

• from Africa south of the Sahara Desert 
• reach 12-20 feet in height 
• males weigh from 1500-2000 pounds 
• newborn giraffe weighs 200 pounds! 
• hooves have two toes 
• lifespan of about 25 years 
• their tongues are about 20 inches long - letting them wrap their tongue around a branch and strip the leaves off it 

One of the interesting facts about giraffes and walking is that they do not alternate their feet when walking. They lift both feet on the left side at the same time, then their feet on the right side. If they were to alternate like humans, they would trip over their own legs.

How many bones do you think a giraffe has in its neck? They have the same number as humans! We both have 7 bones in our necks. While a human's neck bone (vertebrae) is only one inch long, a giraffe's bone is more than 10 inches long.

Coloring Pages

Coloring.WS from DLTK's Giraffe Coloring Pages
Super Coloring's Giraffe coloring pages 

Projects

Crafts: Construction Paper Giraffe

Books

Featured Shape - Measuring Time!

Ovals make for a great shape to focus upon with the letter G because we used lots of ovals in creating our giraffes and you can also talk about grapes which are oval-like in shape.

Giraffes also provide the perfect opportunity to use a ruler or tape measure.
Go to the sidewalk with chalk and a measuring tape. Ask your child to lay down so you can mark how tall they are on the ground. After you measure that, write the number down on the sidewalk. Then measure out 12 to 20 feet to see how tall a giraffe is next to the marks of your children. What a difference there is!

Activities

Drinking like a Giraffe

Because their legs are so long, they can't just lower their head to drink. Pretend you are giraffes and while on all fours, stretch out your arms (to represent the giraffe's front legs) so you can bend your head to the floor.

Snacks

Grapes make a perfect snack for the letter G as well as a perfect time to practice knife cutting skills for your child. Using a dull knife, under adult-supervision, they can practice cutting the grapes lengthwise to help prevent choking hazard.

You can even create this cute lowercase letter 'g' craft – From ABCs to ACTs – which focuses upon grapes.

Other Topics

Goats 

Goats are also one of my favorite animals! I had the opportunity to help take care of goats and sheep during one autumn at the zoo where I worked in 2003. It was such a great experience – I learned so much about them and myself. 

There are over 210 breeds. The goats one typically sees at a zoo include: 

• Boer Goat
• Nigerian Dwarf Pygmy Goat
• Nigerian Goat
• Pygmy Goat

If you live near a zoo, farm, or petting zoo/farm, why not visit the goats? Then you can read up on them when you get home. 

Create your own paper bag goat puppet! 

Gardens and Gardening

Planning and planting a garden with your children is a great idea. There are so many awesome projects and crafts that can be done in relation to gardening with your family. Please check out my Pinterest board for some ideas.

Forging Foundations offers some great ideas through her Bringing Spring into Your Homeschool series.

Gorillas

After learning about gorillas, maybe enjoy a gorilla meal – serve some fruit and maybe even some insects! (You can buy freeze dried insects from a variety of places.)

Cute gorilla printable – learn create love – you can use watercolors like they did or another technique to create your own look.

Gorilla facts on World Wildlife Fund - your family can even 'adopt' a gorilla and receive a plush gorilla to represent your new friend.

Information is also available via the Smithsonian National Zoo's Western lowland gorilla page.

Letter G Craft 

Resources

10 Giraffe Facts! from National Geographic Kids
Giraffe from San Diego Zoo
Giraffe from the Philadelphia Zoo

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