Have you ever read The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest by Lynne Cherry? It is a story about a man sent to the jungle to chop down a kapok tree. He falls asleep and the animals in the rainforest talk to him about why the tree is important. It is a wonderful story, easy to follow and beautifully illustrated.

One of the ideas you could use for crafting would be to create a kapok tree out of construction paper and mount it on a door or wall. The children could then make pictures of the different animals that were mentioned in the story. There are so many different sites that offer coloring pages, or they could simply draw their own. Then, once their animal was completed, they could place it in the appropriate place in the tree. Don’t forget the man who is napping under the tree!

Frogs are one of the animals mentioned in this book. These are the very colorful frogs and the kids could have so much fun crafting their rainforest frogs. I checked out a few sites for ideas and DLTK Kids has so many different ideas for children of all ages. It is worth looking at this site for many reasons. I have included a link at the bottom of the article to the frog ideas. If your child is interested in growing their own frog, and you don't have access to catching your own tadpoles, check out Planet Frog Habitat.

Another animal that contributes some advice to the sleeping man are the snakes. I’m not much into them, but some kids seem to really like them. The San Diego Zoo site has a fun idea to make a snake mobile. It doesn’t seem to be too difficult and could really get some creativity flowing.

Insects are numerous in the rainforest. One of the pages is covered in butterflies, but we know there are so many more “bugs” that exist in the rainforest. I would like to dedicate a few articles simply on “buggy crafts”, anything from food ideas to how to catch them and observe them. This is a fun idea to use for summer months. For the book, it would be very simple to make some butterflies using old fashioned wooden clothes pins. Make a body out of construction paper or foam and glue it to the clothes pin. This could then be attached to your tree, or any other area you would like to decorate. Actually, you could make many different types of insects this way and use them to decorate.

A puppet show would be a fun idea to do. Make the puppets as simple as you would like, or go ahead and attempt something pretty complex. The puppets could be as easy as stick puppets, or you could make various sock puppets. If you don't feel like making your puppets take a look at these: Rainforest Knuckleheads Finger Puppets Set of 4 The kapok tree could be constructed from cardboard and the front of the stage a green sheet or poster board. I’d love to see some pictures posted in the forum, if you decide to do a show.