Springtime sets us to thinking about cute fuzzy animals, and as soon as you pass Valentine’s Day, all the stores are inundated with rabbits for Easter. This of course means, Spring is the perfect time of year for a rabbit preschool unit. This is Future 2019 Ticia, and I loved all the fun projects we did as we did homeschool preschool a decade ago, and I’ve been advising some preschool moms on what to do.
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Books for the Rabbit Preschool Unit
These aren’t in any particular order, and as I remember something about them, I’ll comment, but I wanted a wide variety of books for our Rabbit Preschool Unit, so there are some international myth books, some classic rabbit books, and some modern classics, as well as some anthropomorphic rabbits dealing with common preschool troubles.
- Bunny and the Beast– I love Beauty and the Beast retellings, and this is a book I bought before I had kids in my attempt to collect as many unique retellings as I can. The illustrations are wonderful.
- Bunny Money– I love this book for teaching about money, and it’s a fun way to use any play money you might have with your kids (there’s also some money at the back of the book you could copy or cut out). I also included Bunny Business on my list, but there is a whole slew of Max and Ruby books.
- Dear Peter Rabbit– This is part of a style of picture book that was popular in the late 90s and early 200s with a series of letters between classic literature characters. I love all of them and happily read them to my kids.
- Duck Rabbit– I like this style of optical illusion books, they’re fun
- Goodnight Moon– the classic bedtime book, and of course you should also grab Runaway Bunny while you’re at it
- Little Rabbit and the Meanest Mother on Earth– I didn’t realize this was a series, but it also has Little Rabbit and the Nightmare, and possibly others I didn’t include on my initial list.
- Little Rabbit’s New Baby– While it is the same name, it is a different series, and deals with another common problem for preschoolers
- My Friend Rabbit– I super love this book, the story is simple and told with minimal words, the pictures are amazing, and if you’re so inclined there was briefly a My Friend Rabbit animated series, sadly I liked it more than the kids (it probably greatly helped, the theme music was not “kid-music,” but a fun swing style music I like)
- One More Bunny: Counting from One to Ten– Always good to sneak in a bit of counting practice
- The Tale of Peter Rabbit– My library had a giant treasury of all of Beatrix Potter rabbit stories, but that appears to be out of print, so I linked to the first and most commonly taught Peter Rabbit book
- Rabbit’s Gift– This is the first of the international stories, I quite like it
- The Tale of Rabbit and Coyote– I like trickster characters, and both rabbit and coyote are traditionally trickster characters, so what could be better?
- The Velveteen Rabbit– I love this story, I have a very distinct memory of listening to this as a book on tape in elementary school. I also have a Christmas stocking with the Velveteen Rabbit in it, so this may have been included for nostalgia purposes.
I also checked out several rabbit nonfiction books, but none of them stood out as particularly WOW get this book, so I didn’t include any of them in this list because your library will probably have their own books.
But first, some more preschool ideas
- Preschool Learning Stations
- Monster Preschool Unit
- Preschool Calendar Time
- Hickory Dickory Dock craft
- Me on the Map: Reading a Map lesson
What we did for our Rabbit Preschool Unit
First, the boys had to make a book about what wild rabbits eat. They had to cut out the shapes of the vegetables and glue them into the book. One very important thing I learned, is always do all of the gluing before assembling the books. I had to be very creative in making sure it didn’t glue together.
It looks funny, but the pages aren’t glued together now.
The next project was putting together what a pet rabbit eats. This time I searched out all the pictures from clip art online and we went through and glued down what rabbits eat every day, fruits and vegetables, and things that are poisonous. My boys are now going around telling me rabbits can’t eat “almonds and lavender.” I also hear nonstop about how much rabbits like salad.
Some printable Rabbit Preschool Unit resources I used
I primarily used the free rabbit lapbook from Homeschool Share, but I’ve added in some pictures of foods pet rabbits (and wild rabbits) like to eat and should not eat as a printable worksheet in the preschool section of the subscriber area. I do not have an image of the food pellets. All of the images I can legally use (now that I know about those rules, says Future Ticia 2019), are for dog food…
Finally, I found a dot to dot for the alphabet, I was really looking for a number one, but haven’t found it. I just need to buy a book of those, they really need the practice with numbers. Future Ticia 2019 here, I don’t know what rabbit dot to dot I initially found, but I found 17 rabbit dot to dots, perfect for this rabbit preschool unit.
This week we’re going to continue learning about rabbits and also about Easter. We’re going to make a rabbit warren by draping blankets over chairs and make tunnels. When I do it, I’ll post it. It’s amazing how much there is to do in such a small amount of time. Future Ticia 2019 here, I did not write a post specifically about that, but here’s the same idea when we studied caves.
Of course, you can follow all of this up with a trip to the pet store and look at the pet rabbits there, or if you’re very lucky your friend might have a pet rabbit.
For more great Preschool ideas go to Preschool Corner
It never ceases to amaze me how much there really is to do – and I always find the bulk of it right at the end of our studies! 🙂
We really enjoyed learning about rabbits too – thanks so much for joining Preschool Corner! Hope to have you sharing again!
Jolanthe
I love what you are doing with this book! Big Snail has just learned that he can cut out specific shapes from plain construction paper. You have given me the idea to get him to make a book with his cuttings! Thanks!
Ticia, send me your email at kariwilcher at cherishbound dot com. I also put a video of my on my blog showing what the book looks like.
https://memoriestobooks.blogspot.com