Rotate the animal wheel and learn about South American Animals!

The plywood wheel brings a unique learning experience about South America and its South American animals. It is a practical prop for teachers and parents to use with children.

It offers a simple introduction to teach about the animal world of one of our continents, South America. Children learn to distinguish and memorise the following continent’s wildlife:

Toucan, Anteater, Sloth, Armadillo, Flamingo and Lama.

Developing skills with the wheel of South American animals

– Children perceive a focused selection of 6 key animals from 1 continent. No overwhelming feelings at the introduction stage.
– The rotating design, with only 1 open window, inherently encourages guessing what animal comes next. This rotational motion of images after a while imprints information in the brain stronger. Subsequently, it embeds acquired knowledge of the continent animals deeply in the memory.
– Practice to learn the sequence of animals on the wheel by heart forwards and backwards.
– Practice spelling and writing games of the animals’ names from the wheel.

Expand ideas to diversify the learning activity with the animal wheel

The size of South America is massive. It is home for a wide variety of extraordinary wildlife and ecosystems. It is mostly located in the Southern Hemisphere. For instance, in 2020 Colombia was declared as the number one most bio-diversified country in terms of the number of species per square kilometre. Or, what about the very famous Amazonia – the mysterious Amazon rainforest? Thus, it takes a long time to gain deeper knowledge about the animal world of this continent.

The interactive learning prop is suitable for use as part of a science topic or geography lesson about South American animals.

– Between 3 and 5 years of age, children still enjoy matching games. We highly recommend wildlife figurines from Schleich®.
– Discuss other animals that are missing on the wheel. For example, among mammals – tapirs, jaguars, maned wolves  and spider monkeys. Among reptiles – caimans, iguanas and anacondas. What about amphibians – red-eyed tree frogs or poison dart frogs. Rheas and macaws would be for birds.
– Ideally we recommend combining at least 2-3 wheels of other continents. This way children get to compare, contrast and associate accordingly:

Here you find links to each continent with its animals – North America, Europe, Australia, Asia, Antarctica and Africa
Or discover all 7 continents in one wheel set “Animals in Different Continents”

– Why not combine the animal wheel/s with the Banana Panda’s “What in the World Animals around the Globe”? Where children may discover missing animals on the wheels…

When we cluster information by continent and then unite 7 clusters on one global map, we reinforce the gained knowledge conceptually in a holistic way.

A beautiful and memorable way to introduce animals and their continents on the Earth!

Age: 3-10 years
Includes: 1 plywood wheel of South American wildlife
Material: certified, eco-friendly and sustainable plywood with safe inks
Language: names of animals in basic English
Dimensions: 15 x 15 cm