Peru and Quetzals

Our class learned about the geography and environment of Peru this week.  We found out that Peru has 3 regions--the coastal plains, the Andes Mountains and the Amazon Rainforest.  Mrs. Braybrook started reading the Magic Tree House book, "Afternoon on the Amazon" to us.  The rainforest is a fascinating place, full of many different plants and animals.

One of the interesting animals from the rainforests of South and Central America is the quetzal.  We learned more about this bird by reading the information from the quetzal page on the Enchanted Learning website.  In one of the activities we did, we had to read a question, then highlight the answer in the text.  This helped us to search for information in what we read.  Here are some facts we learned about quetzals:

~They were sacred to the Mayans.

 ~They can be found on the money from Guatemala.

 ~ A male quetzal’s tail feathers can be up to 1 meter long!

 ~ They make their nests in rotting trees.

We then got to do an art project to create quetzals.  After we looked at pictures and a short video of quetzals, we created a unique pattern to the coloring of the quetzal.  In this picture, you can see some of our completed projects:

We were wondering...

Have you heard of quetzals before?

What is your favorite rainforest animal?