Hello all,

“Letter Z is for Zoo Week” was Zany, Zesty, Zippy, Zestful, and certainly Zoological!  Read on below to learn about the fun that was had and leaning that took place.

After studying the alphabet for nearly nine months, it finally was Letter Z Week!  The students arrived at school on Monday morning extremely excited to learn all about the last letter of the alphabet!  With a share box full of alphabet books, zucchini, zeroes, and more, the Letter Z shares sure were plentiful!  Of particular abundance were the various zoo animal shares including tigers, lions, monkeys, rhinos, and of course, zebras!

The letter Z fun continued throughout Monday and Tuesday morning as the students completed their morning work and worked in their morning stations.  From trains carrying zoo animals at the train station to zoo animal habitats constructed in the block area, it was clear that the students were excited about the Zoo-rific theme of the week!

During the afternoon on both Monday and Tuesday, the students brainstormed a list of letter Z words.  Fortunately, the letter Z is a very popular letter at Park Prep Academy and one entire column in the list was filled with students’ names!  The other columns in the list were comprised of some real Z words and some super silly Z words (or Z sounds rather – like Zap and Zoom!)  The students also found the letter Z in many places throughout the classroom.  The book series, Life-Size Zoo, proved very helpful during the letter Z hunt!

On Wednesday, the students created the first letter Z craft of the week – a zebra puppet!  The students turned paper bags into life-like zebras by adding ears, a mane, eyes, eyelashes and a big black snout.

Once all of the pieces had been glued on, the puppet looked more like a French bulldog than a zebra.

This was not the case for long!  The students painted black stripes on their puppets.

The dog puppets quickly transformed into authentic looking zebras!

Later in the afternoon, the students had Spanish class where they played noisy charades to practice their new Transportación vocabulary!  Pretending to be passengers, the students either sat on, drove, piloted around the room in various modes of transportation while their classmates guessed which vocabulary word they were acting out.  Watch the video below; do you know which vehicle these students are in?

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

Well, how did you do? 🙂

On Thursday, the zebra art continued as the students turned stripe-less zebras into stripe-full zebras in the most peculiar way!  Seeing that they had painted the stripes on some zebras on Wednesday, the teachers thought that striping the zebras using marbles would be different, fun, and super Zany!  Watch the video below to see how the zebra found his stripes!

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

The wet zebras were set aside to dry.  Next, the students designed the perfect habitat to put their zebra in!  Using colors like yellows, oranges, and greens, the students painted beautiful backdrops similar to the grasslands and plains in Africa where zebras live.

Once the backdrops had dried, the zebras were added to create the following masterpiece!

During the afternoon, the students had Spanish class where they continued to practice their Transportación vocabulary in a fun and silly way.  All the practice is certainly helping.  Watch below as one student identifies nearly ALL of the relatively new vocabulary!  Way to go!

Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

Friday was the final day of letter Z week which was also the final day of letter artwork!  For this reason, the students created a rare and extremely STINKY letter Z animal.  Do you know what this animal is called?  Here’s a hint – it is probably not what you think it is!

Despite the visual similarity, this animal is NOT a skunk!  It is a Zorilla!  Also called a striped polecat, the zorilla hails from Africa and is a member of the weasel family.  The zorilla recently was “awarded” the title of “Smelliest Animal in the WORLD” by the Guinness Book of Animals Records.  Similar to a skunk, zorillas eject their smelly secretions mainly to protect themselves from other animals who try to eat or attack them.  From the sound of it, the smelly scent would surely make us lose our appetite!  A zorilla’s smell is so potent that it can be smelled from a half a mile away (that is over seven football fields).  According to The Guinness Book, a zorilla’s stinky scent once kept nine lions at bay while the zorilla ate the prey the lions had just attacked.  Talk about a tough little stinker!

The award-winning zorilla seemed like the perfect animal to select for the final letter craft of the year!  Since it was letter Z week, the students created ZaNy ZoRiLLaS!

The final touch was to add some sparkly stinky spray near the backside of their zorillas!  You might want to pinch your nose like the student below, just in case.  🙂

Friday afternoon wrapped up with a technology presentation about the various occupations at the zoo.  The students learned about the different types of zookeepers that look after the different zoo animals.  The students impressed the teachers by recalling a lot of what was discussed during “Letter V is for Veterinarian Week”.  They also saw photographs of the two letter Z animals they had crafted throughout the week – zebras and zorillas!

The students learned some interesting fun facts about both animals. Did you know that all zebras have unique stripe markings simliar to fingerprints on a human.  The students also learned that zebras travel in herds and their stripe markings help protect them from predators, animals trying to attack them.  All of the zebras in the herd run close together so that it is hard for the predators to attack them.  The moving striped patterns of the zebras make it very difficult to see where one zebra begins and another one ends.  Take a look at this photograph; how many zebras do you see?

There are six zebras!

To help demonstrate this point, the teachers selected a few striped students to come to the front of the classroom.  The students interlocked their arms and began running in place just like zebra herds do to protect themselves.

Here is a close up of their three shirts together.  Wow!  The stripes really do blend together, just like zebras in the wild!

Well, that is all for “Letter Z is for Zoo Week”.  As always, thank you for reading.  Have a fun and safe weekend!

-PPA

Reminders:

Tuition for June is due

Thursday, May 26th for all two and four day students

Friday, May 27th for all three and five day students

Next School Closing:

Sunday, May 30th

Observation of Memorial Day

Next School Event:

PPA Father’s Day Celebration

Friday, June 17th

2:00-3:00 p.m.

(No aftercare available)

Theme for Next Week: