The Rabbit Problem {Unit Study}

We came across this book by Emily Gravett at the library and it was an instant favorite! It also inspired a very fun spring/bunny themed unit.

 

Amazon Description: How does 1+1 = 288? A family of rabbits soon supplies the answer in this funny story! Hop along to Fibonacci's Field and follow Lonely and Chalk Rabbit through a year as they try to cope with their fast expanding brood and handle a different seasonal challenge each month, from the cold of February to the wet of April and the heat of July. This extraordinary picture book is packed with gorgeous details and novelty elements including a baby rabbit record book, a carrot recipe book and a surprise pop-up ending.

After reading it a couple (dozen) times, we incorporated some math work:

Since Barrett has been introduced to ones, tens and hundreds we talked about what a "pair" of something is and I challenged him to find out how many bunnies were there at the end. I laid out a number and he copied the amount to make a pair and than added them up to find a total. There is a spot on each page that shows how many pairs there are each month, we used that as a guide. We made it all the way up to 288 and he loved showing me just how big a number it was.

 

For Indie, we have been going through the numbers 1-3. I placed some legos (the same color) on the tray with our 1, 2 and 3 number cards. I also added some bunnies from her duplo lego set to make it a fun theme. 

 

I did a three part lesson to go over the numbers and asked her to point to each one. She decided to put the bunnies over the numbers- which I thought was pretty cute. This tray will be up in our school room for the month.

We also worked on some practical life skills. Barrett is peeling carrots. 

Indie loved using the carrots as stamps. I had some old carrots in the fridge I was about to throw away. This is one of the recommended uses for carrots in the book when they have a surplus! Barrett was confused as to why we would use them to paint and more or less refused to do it. oh well...

He did work on drawing a rabbit with step by step instructions from Activity Village. I have found these sets to be extremely encouraging for my anti-artist. He loves the step by step instructions and I will take any fine motor skill work I can get out of him. They are awesome- and totally free.

Indie also loved coloring a picture of some rabbits. 

Other things that we are planning on incorporating the rest of the month:

Practice Finger Knitting

Making Carrot "Men" for snack

Review of the months of the year/seasons

Parts of a bunny, where they live, what they eat...etc. 

I know there has got to be more but so far it has been fairly successful and tons of fun. I highly recommend taking a look at this book!