And the Rainforest Grew All Around and Around, and the Rainforest Grew All Around

This was a book that was recommended to me by one of my classmates. It is a great way to introduce children to the rainforest, or to wrap up a unit on the plant life cycle. Many young children have heard the song The Green Grass Grows All Around, and this book plays off of that by creating a song/book about the rainforest to the tune of "The Green Grass Grows All Around." On each page a new animal/plant is introduced, and there is a fact box on one side of the page that goes into details about the animal/plant. At the end of the book there is a "For Creative Minds" section that gives teachers and parents extension ideas for the book. There is also recipe for "Rainforest Cookies" that inclues 8 different ingredients that come from the rainforest: cinnamon, banana, sugar, vanilla, sugar, coconut, chocolate, and cashews.

This book starts and ends with "the fluffiest seed that you ever did see" and that makes it a great way to integrate music into a lesson about plant life cycles. This particular song lets students practice their fluency in a call and reply pattern while at the same time introducing them to new knowledge about the rainforest.