The Parrot Tico Tango Unit Study

Watch out for Tico Tango! He wants all of the fruit in the forest for himself, even though it belongs to other animals. Will he anything make this fruit-snatching parrot learn his lesson? Find out in this musical story that teaches kids about colors, animals, and being grateful for what they have.

The Parrot Tico Tango from amazon.com

The story of the parrot Tico Tango is one that produces lots of great lessons for our students: sharing, rhyme, geography, colors, rainforest animals, and more. Enjoy a week exploring all of this lessons with The Parrot Tico Tango unit study.

The Parrot Tico Tango Unit Study Lessons

Here are some sample lessons from The Parrot Tico Tango unit study:

Language Arts: Rhyming and Repetition
Discuss the rhyming words in the story. To check for understanding, begin a story from the sentence and have your student end the sentence with a rhyming word. 

Social Studies: Geography and Culture
Read the book dedication. This will help your student determine the setting of the story (Costa Rica).

Costa Ricans live in Central America. Tico is a colloquial term for a native of Costa Rica. The plural form is ticos. Costa Ricans are usually referred to as ticos by themselves and persons of other Spanish-speaking countries.

The name Costa Rica means “Rich Coast” and it was named by Christopher Columbus in 1502.

People in this region speak Spanish. The most important crops are coffee and bananas. Costa Rica today has the greatest coffee productivity per acre in the world. Bananas are the number one fruit crop of Costa Rica. Costa Rica’s banana industry is currently the country’s number one earner of foreign currency.

Rainforest Facts
The Amazon Rainforest covers over a billion acres, encompassing areas in Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia and the Eastern Andean region of Ecuador and Peru. If Amazonia were a country, it would be the ninth largest in the world. The rainforest is vital to man’s survival. The plants it contains are used both for food and medicine. More importantly the earth’s atmosphere is sustained by the oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange that takes place when plants convert sunlight into energy.

Science: Rainforest Fruits
At least 3,000 fruits are found in the rainforests. Discuss the fruits mentioned in the story with your student. Which ones can he remember? 

In the tropical rain forest, fruits are plentiful including avocados, coconuts, figs, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, bananas, guavas, pineapples, mangos and tomatoes; vegetables include corn, potatoes, rice, winter squash and yams; spices like black pepper, cayenne, chocolate, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, sugar cane, turmeric, coffee and vanilla and nuts including Brazil nuts and cashews. At least 80% of the developed world’s diet originated in the tropical rainforest.

To access all of the lessons in this The Parrot Tico Tango unit study, grab the file at the end of this post.

The Parrot Tico Tango Printables

In addition to lessons for various subjects, this The Parrot Tico Tango unit study also includes a few printables in two options: color and black/white:

• Fruit Color Cards
• Rainforest Animal Cards
• Positional Words Mat
• Words That Rhyme with Fig Activity Page

You can use the fruit cards and the animal cards for these activities:

Option 1: Set out all the fruit cards for your student. Have your student put the fruits in order based on the story starting with the mango.

Option 2: Set out all the animal cards for your student. Have your student put the animal cards in order based on the story starting with the parrot.

Option 3: Put out the fruit and animal cards. Let your student match the fruit card to the animal card and put them in order based on the story.

How to Get Started with The Parrot Tico Tango Unit Study

Follow these simple instructions to get started with the The Parrot Tico Tango unit study:

1. Buy a copy of the book, The Parrot Tico Tango, or borrow one from your local library.
2. Print The Parrot Tico Tango unit study.
3. Choose the lessons you want to use with your student (a highlighter works great for this).
4. Choose and prepare the printables you want to use with your student.
5. Enjoy a week of rainforest learning with your student.

Download Your The Parrot Tico Tango Unit Study and Printables

Resources to Compliment Your The Parrot Tico Tango Unit Study

The Parrot Tico Tango is set in Costa Rica. Check out our other resources set in this beautiful country:

You may also want to take some time to learn more about the bird featured in The Parrot Tico Tango. Homeschool Share offers a free lapbook dedicated to these brightly colored birds.