Arctic Animals

After spending a couple weeks talking about animals in the winter, we finished up our winter study with animals that always live in the cold. Although this focus topic was brief, we still had a lot of fun exploring the north and south poles, and the different animals that make their homes there.

Penguins

Shape penguins on the felt board

We used icy trays and water beads to explore how penguins slide on the ice, and swim in the water.

Some students added fingerprint penguins to their snowy pictures from earlier in the month.

Black and White

One of the penguin books we read inspired us to also think about the colors black and white, so I set up my keyboard for some exploration of patterns with those colors.

North Pole Animals and Polar Bears

Then we thought about animals at the North Pole, and mostly focused on polar bears.

Arctic Animal Sensory Play- the kids started categorizing the land and water animals. 

A polar bear alphabet game. 

Polar Bear Masks

I saw these from another teacher on my Instagram feed, and I couldn't resist. 

We used them to sing some songs during music time after they dried.

We were inspired by the illustrations from two books to create our last snowy art project.

I love how these turned out, even if many penguins and polar bears ended up in the same picture. :) 

Animals in the Winter

This year, our winter study mainly focused on what animals do when it gets so cold.

Migration, Hibernation, and Adaption

We talked about how different animals respond to the cold weather. Some migrate to warmer places, some sleep, and some find ways to adapt and survive.

We read several nonfiction books about real animals that inspired some of our explorations.

This student was interested in the homes that beavers stay in during the winter months, and built one of his own using loose parts.

We also read many fiction stories about animals in the winter, including some that are silly and imaginative. But even books that are just pretend help us to think about what it might be really like to live outside in the winter time. 

The traditional story of the Mitten was one of our favorites. It inspired some retelling activities, and a favorite alphabet game during music time. 

We would hide the mitten under a letter, sing a little song, and then make guesses about where it might be. The kids loved finding and hiding it over and over again. 

We also thought about the different kinds of tracks animals leave in the snow

Hibernation is always a favorite topic during this unit, and the kids loved dramatic play in the "Bear Cave."

We used our spinning art from earlier in month as a background for this simple snowy bear craft.

Math Game: How many bears in the cave?

I love using this math game when talking about hibernating bears because it's so great for building number sense and 1:1 correspondence. We count out a certain number of bears, hide some, and try to figure out how many are hiding. 

Learning with Snow

January started out really dry, but we finally got a good snowstorm so that we could do some snowy winter activities.

Outdoor Play

We had a lot of snow out in the yard, which led to a lot of gross motor activities like shoveling and rolling balls for a "snowman city."

Snow Art and Sensory Play

My favorite thing to do in winter is to bring the snow inside to use as a learning tool. We used it for sensory play, science exploring, and art. 

For our art project, we ripped up pieces of bleeding tissue paper and then scooped snow on top to see what happened as it melted.

  The colors of the tissue paper started to bleed and mix together as the snow liquefied.  

We let them dry over a few days, and the melted snow and paper left behind some beautiful colors and designs.

To finish them off, we added some puffy paint to the designs. 

I was glad we had at least one good storm in January so that we could use real snow during our study of winter!