Arctic Animals

I had to plan a 2-hour lesson on arctic animals for preschool today. It worked out pretty well, so I was going to share.

I have a gigantic National Geographic map that takes us my whole wall--pretty much. So I hung that up. Then I printed out pictures of various arctic animals and hid them around the room. After the kids arrived and we had some gathering time activities (usually puzzles or coloring), and some circle time stuff (calendar, finger plays http://nwkls.mykansaslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Marco-Fingerplay1.pdf, songs), we played I, Spy and I let the kids take turns finding the animal I had given clues about. For example, I might say "I spy an animal that is white and furry all over. It is very big with four huge paws." Hopefully they would guess "polar bear" and then try to find the picture of it. Then I let them attach the animal to his habitat. Seeing as the topic was "arctic" animals, most of the time we were taping the animals in the north pole. But a few animals live in the sound pole (penguins), and some animals have a range of habitats (like the killer whale). Anyway, the kids had a great time with this game! And I think we all learned a lot!

After we had looked at the animals and identified their habitats, I have a few more facts about each one. Then I let the kids think about which animal was their favorite and we graphed favorites on a prepared graph I had made the night before. The clear winner from our class was the walrus. Who woulda thunk?

Then we moved over to the table to work on our craft. The kids got light blue construction paper and white cutouts of polar bears. They could chose were they wanted to affix their bear on their paper and then glue him on. I had gathered various materials on the table for the kids to use after that. They could glue coconut onto their bear to give him "fur." They could glue cotton balls onto their bear as fur, or use the cotton balls to add snow to their scene. There was white paint they could use with paint brushes or sponges. I showed them how to use their white fingerprints to make it look like snowflakes falling in their scene. Etc. I would say this craft was a hit. The kids really enjoyed having so much choice.

After that was free time followed by snack time. I popped popcorn and we called it snowballs. I cut up poppyseed muffins and we called it dirty snow. We had fishy crackers because most arctic animals eat fish. We had some ice-cream too. 'Cause it has the word "ice" in it.

Then we had some polar races. We pretended to be arctic hares and had a hopping race. Then we were seals and slid on our bellies. We walked on all fours like polar bears. We put potatoes on the tops of our feet and waddled like penguins. We ran like eskimos. This was the kids' 2nd most favorite thing that we did.

But strangely, their MOST favorite thing that we did was a different kind of race. I put a bunch of ice cubes in a bowl and let the kids take turns using tongs to move all the ice cubes from one bowl to another. We even timed each other. The kids totally got a kick out of this race and wanted to do it over and over and over. I thought they might feel overly competitive with each other, but mostly they just wanted to beat their own time.

While we waited for our moms to come pick us up, we sat down on the couch and read "Mama, Do You Love Me?" and "Over in the Arctic"http://www.dawnpub.com/our-books/over-in-the-arctic-where-the-cold-winds-blow/ and spent some time reviewing what we had learned about the animals.

It was an awesome day!