Favourite Books about the Arctic and Antarctic Regions

I'm sharing our favourite books on winter animals, about the arctic and Antarctic regions.  Hope you find this list helpful.

Arctic Diorama

Last week, the boys and I made an arctic diorama.  I asked the boys to help me assemble a small diorama that we can place on the table for exploration and subject of discussion in the course of our polar region studies.

Polar Activities for Preschoolers

Here are our 9 activity trays this winter season, where in some days, Vito can finish 3 activities in a day while in some, almost none.  These ideas are good for about 2-3 weeks of learning.  Vito would also work on some non-polar activities in between, mostly practising reading with pink series, playing with our Grimm’s blocks, Legos, and just about anything he wants to do.  There are also spontaneous activities that come in between, mostly a product of discussion and as book extensions.  I mostly share these in my Instagram account, but if it’s post-worthy, you’ll be able to read it in the blog as well.

FREE Polar Region Animals Coloring Pages

Mavi is into coloring these days and I would like to share the coloring pages (with trace and draw) that I made for him so you too can enjoy it!

Arctic and Antarctica Activities for Toddlers

Vito is 26 months old.

The Polar Regions (Arctic and Antarctic Unit) for Gradeschoolers

January is usually the best time to have winter themed activities or do either Antarctica or Arctic activities.  It is the time when kids can envision these frozen part of the planet due to the cold/extreme weather.  To start with, I've setup an invitation to play tray in our shelf and displayed books to go along with it.  These can be accessed by the boys whenever they want to and they are not age specific, big boys and little brothers can share and play with the tray!

Study of the Polar Regions (Arctic and Antarctic Unit)

We studied Arctic and Antarctica a few days before we left, and identified the difference between these polar lands.

These are the books we used:

• Polar Lands
• Polar Lands (100 Things You Should Know About...)
• The Polar Region's Most Amazing Animals

An Arctic Theme

A few weeks ago, I prepared an Arctic Theme for our little homeschooling.  It was a hit! My son became obsessed with polar bears and caribous for while.  And even with the books which I borrowed from our library, it took him awhile to get over them.  

Here are the activities we had based on our theme:

Matching game.  The animals were from Safari Toobs and I just made classification cards.  He enjoys matching but once he get used to it, he easily gets bored.  So what I do is to add a little excitement with the matching game.  Sometimes as we match an animal to the card, I would show him a video of that animal via our iPad (helpful because it is portable).  I would ask him for the different parts of the animals and what does it do or how does the animal behave.  It’s even more exciting if I would ask him of what sounds does that certain animal make according to the video. This activities and tactics help instill those animals in his heart and mind :)

Penguin puzzle.  I made this by myself.  Searched  a random image from google, printed it twice... with the other one as an outline.  Using the outline I use foam sheets for the puzzle and the remaining printout is for his guide. He was so excited to do this puzzle! 

His Ninong John and Tita Meyms gave him this toy camera.  He loves it to death!  Since he got his very own camera, he loves to pretend taking pictures of his accomplishments hehe.

Then for math, although this is not related to “arctic”, I just make use of our existing snowman number cards which I printed out from a website (sorry I can’t remember the link) two years ago. On the left is counting cards and the on the left is arranging size from smallest to biggest.

And that’s it for our arctic theme! I was hoping to do more activities on the “arts and crafts” side but we went on a vacation. Maybe in the future as I’m planning to revisit this theme again.