“Imaginations will soar from the rainforest floor, up through the canopy and back down again, following the circle of life in this clever adaptation of the song TheGreen Grass Grew All Around.”
The Rainforest Grew All Around by Susan K. Mitchell is an excellent resource to introduce children to the wonders of the rainforest; the cycle of it’s creation from seed to seed. The lyrical text and brilliant pictures of jungle plants and animals are very engaging, and are the perfect content on which to base a young children’s yoga class.
“On the ground,
there fell a seed . . .
the fluffiest seed
that you ever did see.
The seed in the ground,
And the rainforest grew
All around, all around;
The rainforest grew all around.”
The children interpret each plant and animal into a yoga pose as we read/sing the words of this beautiful book.
As we cycle from seed to tree (Kapok tree), to cat (jaguar), to vine, to snake (emerald tree boa), and eventually back to seed, the little yogis cycle from child’s pose to tree, cat, eagle, cobra, and eventually return to child’s pose. Each page has an accompanying sidebar with interesting information about the plant or animal. The children also love to look for rainforest bugs and butterflies nicely embedded in the detailed illustrations.
When sharing this book with the young children in their lives, I recommend that adults do the activities “For Creative Minds” with them, as seen in the back of the book:
- Rainforest animal adaptations
- Plant adaptations
- Seed dispersal
- What comes from the rainforest?
There is even a Rainforest cookie recipe that contains several ingredients that come from the rain forest.
As the children participate in learning about the complicated life cycle of the rain forest by chanting the fun and familiar lyrics, searching each beautiful illustration for rainforest flora and fauna and creating yoga poses that flow from one to the other, they are engaged, they giggle, they are also learning about the “fragile circle of life”.
Susan K. Mitchell is also the author of Stone Pizza, a picture book based on the Stone Soup tale. She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and writes regularly for a variety of children’s print and online magazines. Ms. Mitchell is also a pre-school teacher, Spanish teacher and mom.
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