Packing for an Amazon Expedition (All Ages)
Tell your kids to imagine they were packing for an expedition into the Amazon rainforest. What would they want to bring, and why? Get their ideas, writing each one down on your blackboard and discussing why it’s important. Then offer your own input on anything you think might be missing.

 

What Would You Do: Jungle Edition (All Ages)
In this simple yet fun group time activity, tell kids to imagine each of the following scenarios, and then ask them what they would do:

• To get people to stop burning or cutting down the rainforest
• To survive in the jungle after crashing your plane there with no supplies
• A monkey stole your backpack and you needed it back
• You were floating down a river in crocodile-infested waters and your boat sprang a leak
• You came across an uncontacted Amazonian tribe
• To find or build shelter from the rain
• You were lost in the rainforest and needed to find a way out

 

Curious Random Thoughts: Jungle Edition (All Ages)
Sit down with your kids and act like you’re daydreaming, swaying back and forth with your head on your chin while staring dreamily off into the distance. Or stretch out on the floor and lay down and have your kids do the same. Then hit them with the following random thoughts, starting each sentence with “I wonder … ” and then having a brief discussion about each one.

• How long it would take me to walk from one side of the Amazon to the other
• What it would feel like to be swallowed by a giant anaconda
• What’s the most unusual thing you might find in a rainforest
• What would happen if I kissed a Piranha
• How big is the biggest spider in the jungle
• If carnivorous plants would think I’m delicious If
• I could swing from tree to tree like a monkey

After you’ve exhausted your list of random thoughts, you might ask the kids if they have any random thoughts of their own, and if so, to share them with the class. It’s an activity your kids are sure to love!

 

Either/Or: Jungle Edition (All Ages)
Give kids one of the either/or propositions listed below, and have them tell you which they would prefer. Kids love it because it allows them to express their opinion, something many of them rarely get the chance to do. As always, once you exhaust their either/or suggestions given, feel free to come up with your own.

• • Death by poisonous snake bite or swallowed whole by a giant anaconda?

  • Bitten by a tarantula or chewed on by a Piranha?

 

Kiss, Kick or Cuddle: Jungle Edition
You might have played a game similar to this during sleepovers when you were a kid. The idea is to name three things, and then have kids place each of them into the categories provided, making decisions about which to kiss, kick or cuddle while explaining a bit about the rationale behind the choices they make. It’s a fun group-time game that can lead to lots of giggles! You can also get creative and switch up the options provided: Instead of kiss, kick and cuddle, you might substitute one or more categories for lick, taste, eat, punch, marry, bite, ride, stomp, dance with, send to Mars, and so on. Here are some groupings to get you started:

• Giant anaconda/pit viper/carnivorous flower
• Tour guide/pilot/indigenous Amazonian
• Giant hairy tarantula/giant hairy ape/giant hairy man
• Monkey/sloth/leopard
• Banana/parrot/piranha
• Canoe/grass hut/mud puddle
• Pink river dolphin/poison dart frog/crocodile