Hello again! This week we are learning about Brazil. Along with learning about some of the culture and geography of Brazil, we are also learning about the Amazon Rainforest. It’s been pretty cool to learn about the different types of animals and insects that live there. As well as the “layers” of the rainforest and how everything works together as its own little ecosystem. Isn’t life amazing?
I’m teaching my older daughter how to write a very simple research paper. And by that I mean researching an animal from the rainforest and writing one paragraph. She absolutely loves the big cats of the world but I wanted her to switch it up because she recently researched cheetahs. This time she chose to write about the anaconda. Did you know that they are the largest snake in the world, and that they live in water and on land? Sort of terrifying. But also cool.
We also learned that the reason Brazil is the only Portuguese speaking country in South America is because of the Treaty of Tordesillas. Where Portugal and Spain “drew a line” in the Atlantic ocean and Spain claimed West of the line and Portugal claimed East of the line. Although the line moved later on and because of it then running through Brazil, Portugal was able to claim Brazil which caused Brazil to become a Portuguese speaking country.
Tomorrow we are going to be creating a rainforest. We will be using construction paper to make our forest and I’ll be making some animals that they can place in the different layers of the rainforest. We’ll also label the layers and the animals that live there. This will help me to see if they have actually been listening this week 😉
I wanted to include a coloring sheet in our time of learning about Brazil. In my opinion, one of the prettiest things that lives in the rainforest is the Blue Morpho Butterfly. You can find some cool information by clicking here. The males tend to have the vibrant blue color…as with anything in the animal kingdom I suppose. They also have a brown color with “eye spots” on the underside of their wings to protect themselves form predators. How neat!
The drawing I’ve done on the left was inspired by the image on the right. This coloring page is meant to be done in shades of blue, but as with any coloring page, feel free to choose any colors you like. Relax and escape to the Amazon Rainforest. Imagine you’re trying to search for these beautiful creatures in the thick greenery of the understory. As always, happy coloring!
