Here is our second continent box: Antarctica plus the Arctic, just in time to wish you a Happy World Penguin Day. I have decided to include activities about the Arctic and tundra in general in this box because of lack of space available at home. However, this creates a great opportunity to talk with Pinky about the North and South pole and their differences/similarities between them.

Photo: Our continent Box plus a green bin where I keep the books available. After we finish the Continent unit, everything goes inside the big bin. The lower photo is another sensory box with white felt, packing peanuts, white flower petals, scrap paper and aquarium marbles and rocks (for the penguins to build their nests). The photo on the right is our version of the Scrimshaw (ivory soap carvings).

 

For this box, we took advantage of the snowy Winter days and the snow just to re-create a mini-world. If you doesn’t have the snow factor advantage, you could recreate a sensory box with ice…or shaving cream….or white/blue play-doh….There are many available options all over the Internet!

Let’s see what did we learn with the Antarctica continent box:

Books

We explored books about: Atlas, The world, Arctic (Balto, Inuits, canada, alaska, iceland, etc), penguins. We LOVE books in this house!!! In the last photo, Pinky is playing after we read the Magic tree house chapter book: Polar bears past bedtime.

Sensory Box with Ice and Snow

Pinky played with different sensory box set-ups using water, snow, ice, scrap paper, packing peanuts, etc.

3 part cards

Parts of a Polar bear.

Parts of a penguin

Arctic animals….cards-objects matching activity….on the back of the card we have some information about the animals.

Clothing

Antarctica scientist clothing and Frosty the snowman clothing…..both need lots of clothes!!! lol

Inuits- Balto story and movie time

We don’t usually watch t.v.; however, comparing a book and it’s movie was such an interesting activity. She amazed me!!

Penguins!!!

Puzzle from Dollar tree store!

 

Hold your egg like a Penguin! Too funny and hard!!! lol Excellent for the snow storm lockdown…

 

7 Penguins of Antarctica craft. Idea from Montessori Tidbits (link below)

 

Check out these great sites for more activities to include in your Antarctica or Arctic unit study:

1. Living Montessori Now: Montessori-Inspired Arctic and Antarctic Unit
2. Joy of Kindergarten: Getting My Penguins In a Row
3. Parent, teach, play: Penguins – Play & Learning!
4. Trillium Montessori: Antarctica: Overview, Antarctica: Penguins (free Penguins and Their Chicks printable), and Antarctica: Whales (How Long is a Whale? free printable cards)
5. Jojoebi: Penguins 3 part cards free
6. Kingdom of the three princesses: Our Continent Boxes – Antarctica (lots of resources/links about transportation, food chain, clothing, etc.)
7. Mondorfment: Mondorfment Continent Swap Hop and Giveaway (free life cycle of the Emperor Penguin)
8. Montessori Tidbits: Penguins of Antarctica craft (from here comes the 7 penguins of Antarctica craft idea)
9. Scholastic: Lesson 2: The Extreme Antarctic 
10. Counting Coconuts: Our Continent Bags - Antarctica
11. Discovery days and Montessori Moments: Antarctica Box!
12. Montessori MOMents: Antarctica Cultural Exchange Package
13. What did we do all day?: Continent Boxes: Antarctica
14. The Pinay Homeschooler: Continent: Antarctica Unit, Arctic Animals Control Cards (FREE PRINTABLE)
15. Little things: Very Last First Time (Arctic unit)
16. New bee homeschooler: Serie of great post about the Arctic.
17. Learn, create, love: { Arctic Animal Crafts }

 

Visit our Pinterest Board: Continent Box: Antarctica, Arctic, for more amazing ideas!

Thanks for visiting!!!

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I think I am a little late posting activities Winter-related but, around here, it’s still COLD!!!

Well,  this lazy mama explored things that animals do in winter with Pinky a few weeks (or months) ago.

I’d make a coloring booklet about activities we (humans) do in winter a long time ago, maybe when Pinky was 2 and a half years old, and never had the opportunity to finish it. So, now, this was a great addition to our mini-unit and a great mommy-daughter activity on those snowy and cold days. The coloring pages are about: making snow angels, snow tasting, baking, reading a book, snow fights, making a snowman, skiing, caroling, sledding, etc. Yeah! we finally used the homemade coloring book!!!

We read a few books from the library but the best one was What do animals do in winter? by Melvin Berger and Gilda Berger, illustrated  by Susan J. Harrison.

Then, we looked for our animals figurines in order to sort them. As I was reading, Pinky sorted the animals.

Just short, easy and free!!!

 

Useful links:

1. Hibernation & Animals in Winter! from Good books for kids. Amazing list of books about Animals in Winter.
2. What do animals do in Winter? from Ms. Crowley’s class blog. They sorted animals pictures by what animals do in winter: Hibernate, Adapt and migrate and made a beautiful and easy art project.
3. Animals in the Winter - Links for Montessori Unit Study, has a great recompilation of different activities by sub-themes like: How do animals prepare for winter?, Why do birds fly south in the winter? and Where do the insects go in the winter?, etc.
4. Animals in Winter from Trillium Montessori. Easy, fast and meaningful activities to complete your readings. Love it!
5. A great substitution for the plastic animals but, still a good manipulative, are the animals picture cards available at MPS: Animals in Winter.

Pinterest

 

Now we are more than ready for S.P.R.I.N.G!!!!

What do animals do in Spring????

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Disclaimer: These links are activities I think are great to add for further learning. I am sharing them because I feel they are useful for someone and I am NOT receiving anything in exchange….just my opinion!