Polar Bear unit study

About a year ago, my youngest siblings made these polar bears with my son.  We printed out the template from www.thebestkidsbooksite.com, cut and glued them onto blue construction paper for contrast, and had fun gluing cotton swabs to them.  We found that the most effective way for the younger children to do this was to have them dip the cotton into a small tray of glue, instead of gluing the polar bear.  Some of the kids wanted there to be snow in the picture.  Sometimes the joy is in the doing, not in the results.  :o)

This was part of a unit study on polar bears.  We also read Whiteblack the Penguin Sees the World from the library and discussed how penguins and polar bears do not live together and showed the kids where polar bears live on a globe.  We showed pictures of polar bears from the National Geographic magazine, and said a polar bear rhyme similar to the one found here.  We also snacked on fish crackers because polar bears eat fish.  I think that unit studies like this are especially helpful for introducing new concepts to younger children.

Similar post:  Frog Day

Frog Day!

News flash: PEBS academy (in which Peter is the "P") recently celebrated frog day. Older children learned about the life cycle of a frog while the youngest member played with his dump truck. Singing time included "Five little speckled frogs", and children enjoyed playing leap-frog during the festivities. The highlight of the event came when the children traced their hands, cut them out, and glued them to paper plates that had previously been finger-painted to look like frogs. Each frog was given two paper eyes and a pipe-cleaner mouth. Peter was given his frog as the activity is better suited for slightly older children.

The event was concluded by serving "Frog Swamp Soup", a concoction of lime sherbet and root beer.