The Arctic and The Three Snow Bears

This week we learned about the Arctic and read The Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett.  This story came from an Ivy Kids box and was perfect with our Arctic theme.  The story is a variation on Goldiocks and the Three Bears.  Both of the kids loved this story and we read it many times during the week.

We read many books about polar bears and were supposed to make bears out of clay, but  they were more interested in making and drilling teeth with Clara’s dentist play-doh toy.

We made cozy dens for our bears.

We  did an experiment with Crisco to see how blubber keeps animals warm.  We dipped our hands in ice water and then wrapped our hands in Crisco.  It really worked!

When we were getting ready to leave the house a few days later, Clara says to me: “I have lot of blubber, so I don’t need a coat”.  Nice try!

We did a paining of the “northern lights” with ice.

We read Over and Under – a fun way to learn about what is happening under the snow during the winter.  We learned about animals that hibernate and animals that must continue foraging for food in the winter.

I made them forage for their own lunch that day.  They loved this and begged me to keep hiding their lunch.

We made igloos.

Clara got so sad when she realized she didn’t have enough pieces for a roof.  She was fine until she saw how her brothers had turned out.  Benjamin was so sweet afterwards and gave his to her and said to her “I made this for you”.

Then they ran off to build an Eskimo village.

We enjoyed playing in the Arctic ocean.  Wished we would have had more icebergs, but freezer space is a major issue right now.

We did retellings of the story with character cards.  I was amazed at how many details Benjamin included in his retelling!

We finished off the week by making bear dens with graham crackers.  They turned out cute!

We also met the homeschool group at the gym for fun and games!

I guess we had a couple of pajama days this week.  I wasn’t feeling great and had some bad nights so I’m amazed we accomplished as much as we did.