Welcome to our collection of Awe-Inspiring Arctic Animals – a collection of relaxed and fun activities for winter-themed learning plans, snowed in days, or just plan learning fun! For this day, we learned a bit about polar bears! We read a nonfiction book about these arctic bears, watched a few videos from zoos, created and snacked on our edible polar bear habitats, and performed a science experiment. Read on to check out the fun!
A TYPICAL DAY
All kids are different and you can definitely vary your day with whatever works for you 🙂 But the gist of our day having our kiddos focus on some work books or online learning tools in the early morning, an intro to the day’s theme after they were done, some videos around lunch time, and themed activities (reading time, writing time, crafts, food crafts/snacks, and games or experiments) in the afternoon. Feel free to pick and choose whatever works for you 🙂
WHAT TO WATCH
For our video of the day we picked a few of the non-fictions ones below. But, if you’re looking for more of a mix of fun and educational, the Wild Kratts episode may be a nice choice 😉 We also took a look at some zoo live cams of polar bears (though you may not always see a polar bear come into view).
- Polar Bear | Amazing Animals by NatGeoKids (2m)
- Polar Bears for Kids | Wild Animals | Arctic Animals by Socratica Kids (8m)
- Polar Bears Show Off Their Hunting Abilities | The Zoo: San Diego by Animal Planet (7m)
- Wild Kratts: Polar Bears Don’t Dance S1E07
Polar Bear Live Cams:
FOOD CRAFTS / SNACKS
For our snack of the day, the goal was to create a habitat using toothpicks and marshmallows…. BUT, the little ones remembered the BIG marshmallows we had in the house. And so, they created a snowy scene and ice cave for our polar bears. Once we were done building and satisfied our structure worked well, we dunked a few marshmallows into some yummy hot chocolate!
READING
Reading is not just an important part of learning, it can also be fun if you pick the right books and theme! For our book of the day, we had a non-fiction book about polar bears as well as a mix of a children’s picture book as well as minecraft themed one.
- National Geographic Kids – Polar Bears
- Polar Bear Wish
- Diary of a Minecraft Polar Bear
WRITING & WRITING PROMPTS
Just like reading, writing is a great way to practice both their creative skills as well as their writing and penmanship.
If you’ve got a little one, have them trace words related to the theme: POLAR BEAR, BLUBBER, ARCTIC, SWIM…
If you’ve got older children, have them write a sentence or two up to a page or two (depending on their age). Encourage them to be creative AND give reasons for why they made certain choices. Our writing prompt of the day was:
- Imagine you were a polar bear for a day. What fun games and activities would you play with your polar bear friends?
CRAFTS
For our craft of the day, we created a polar bear finger puppet. There are a few polar bear templates out there but we just patterned ours off of a simple bear and used white felt. Rather than sewing, we used some hot glue (it was a bit quicker). Then we had a little polar bear puppet play 🙂
STEM ACTIVITY
For our science activity, we picked one that you may or may not have come across in an arctic animal lesson (we have used this one quite a bit as the kiddos seem to really like it). Essentially, you get to see how blubber keeps an animal warm in the coldest of temperatures! Like many arctic animals, polar bears also have a layer of blubber that helps keep them warm. The link below is to a short video that shows how to do the experiment as well as explaining the science behind it.
SciShowKids: Fun with Blubber!
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you for checking out our arctic animal learning article! If you enjoyed this article, please let us know what you think in the comments below and/or follow us on Pinterest
Also, if you haven’t already, check out some of our other Awe-Inspiring Arctic Animals, Winter Fun & Winter Learning Fun Ideas!
Happy Learning!
