Polar Animal Crafts

This past week my class studied polar animals. Since my crafts were mostly "reruns" that I tweaked a bit and ones I copied from other people, I thought I'd quickly show them all in one post. I will link back to my original posts if you would like further instructions.
I decided to add some color to our crafts this week. Some by choice, others not so much. First up is the penguin. I used this craft, but cut the body and flippers from all different colors of paper, just for fun.

When we learned about polar bears, I used a craft I found at Mrs. Nessman's blog. I loved it! The kids used crumpled up waxed paper to make ice for their polar bears. They did all the tearing and crinkling and gluing themselves. I had already cut out the polar bears for them. They just added eyes and noses with a black marker. So cute!

I think next time I might try having them watercolor the background before adding the waxed paper.
For our seal pup craft, I had planned on making the same craft we made last year, but I forgot my fake snowflakes at home. So instead I found colored sand and asked the kids if they would mind making colorful seal pups. Of course they loved the idea! So they painted with glue and sprinkled on the sand.

Then came the snowy owls. We used the same technique as our puffy paint owls, but we just used regular white paint instead of making puffy paint. The kids used little porcupine balls to stamp an owl shape on their paper.

And then they added yellow eyes and brown beaks. I was low on blue paper, so we had colorful backgrounds instead.

I love all the colors!

I added in one more polar bear craft that I found at Mrs. Payton's Precious Kindergarteners. We made huge polar bear paws! The average polar bear's paw is 12 inches across, so I got the biggest white paper I could find and drew a paw shape on it. Kind of like an oval, kind of like a rounded rectangle. The kids cut them out themselves.

 I cut the claws and paw pads out for them and they glued them on.

But I took this craft one step further and added their footprints!

Then, similar to when we studied gorillas and we made our hand prints on top of a gorilla's hand print, I asked the kids what they would do if they ever met a polar bear. A friendly polar bear. I wrote their responses down and displayed it in the hallway.

And all week long, the kids could play with polar animals in water beads! The clear is the ice, the blue is the water.

I hope you enjoyed my polar animals recap!

Ice Age Fossils and Sensory Activity

During our Ice Age unit, we made some fossils. We did it the same way we made our dinosaur fossils last year. I bought an Ice Age nature tube from Amazon and it came with several animals.

We used white Model Magic and flattened it into a circle. I bought the ones that came in small pouches and each child got one pouch. It was the perfect size. Then the kids picked one animal and squished it into the Model Magic, leaving an imprint behind.

I put them in the windowsill to dry up for a few days, then the kids used watercolors to paint them.

Once painted, the imprint shows up much better.

I also used those same plastic animals for a sensory activity. I froze them in a bread pan! I crumbled up pieces of tin foil so the animals could stand up at different levels. You could just freeze several layers and add animals with each layer, but I kind of forgot about it until a few hours before bed. So I did it this way instead.

Don't pay any attention to the saran wrap. It didn't do what I wanted it to do. I added a drop of blue food coloring to some water and poured it in the pan. It was only about an inch of water. Then I added the animals. I made sure all the animals had some body part in water so they would be frozen in place for the second step.

Before going to bed, I added the rest of the water so it covered the animals completely. And because they were already frozen in a little bit of water, they all stayed standing. The next day at school, the kids used wooden sticks to chip away at the ice. (They were from those scratch art kits.) We sprinkled a bunch of salt on top to make it melt faster.

You could hear the ice crack! The kids thought it was very cool. (No pun intended.) Later we poured warm water over it.

If it hadn't been pouring rain outside, we would have done this activity out in the sun! But eventually the kids were able to get all the animals out. It was an all-day-long activity, which ended with an ice cream party! (Another "ice" thing to go along with the Ice Age theme!)



Arctic Foxes, Water Beads and Bingo

The last polar animal we learned about was the arctic fox. We learned how they are brown in the summer and white in the winter. So we started with brown foxes. I found a coloring sheet I liked, printed it on brown construction paper and cut out the fox. (I used this one.) The kids glued the brown fox to white paper, for a "snowy" background.

Then they used a glue stick to cover their fox with cotton balls so it would blend in with the background.

They stretched and peeled apart the cotton balls before gluing them on. And boy, was it a sticky situation!

But they loved it.

I also want to share with you a couple things we had going on this week. In the sensory bin I put blue water beads in a small container and filled the rest of the bin with clear water beads. The blue is the water, the clear is ice and snow. Then I put in some polar animals.

Of course, after I bought the clear water beads, I learned about square water beads from a few other bloggers. That would have worked better for the ice.

And I also made Polar Bingo for the kids. I found this great site where you can make cards with pictures on them. I printed several copies of the cards and put them in groups of 8 onto paper. Then I laminated them.

I printed out another set from which the kids would pick, and also laminated those.

I set out our counting bears to use as markers. The kids took turns picking a card and if either of them had it on their Bingo card, they covered it with a bear.

It really was a lot of fun and I think I might visit that site again and again to make different things for my classroom! It's free!

Fun Fact: Arctic foxes have a great sense of hearing. If they hear an animal under the snow, they will leap up and pounce, thus breaking the snow right where the prey is.

Blue B's, Purple Collages, and Rainbow Rice

I decided to lump together our last couple projects that we did for our Color unit last week. They are very simple and didn't seem to need their own post. On Thursday we discussed the color blue and also our letter of the week was B. So I printed out a big B from my computer and traced it onto paper for the kids.

Then I put out three shades of blue paint and different brushes and foam rollers.

The bowl without any brushes was for finger painting. The kids had a great time decorating their B's!

Friday was Violet/Purple day. I found a bunch of random purple things from my craft drawer.

The kids glued whatever they wanted on their paper.

I also made rainbow rice for our sensory tub. I've wanted to color rice for the longest time and this was the perfect time to do it. There are directions out on the web which say to use something like 2 tbsp rubbing alcohol with a few squirts of food coloring and 2 cups of rice. But I never measured. I just poured some alcohol into a big ziploc baggie, added some food coloring and poured in some rice. If it didn't seem to cover it all or if the color wasn't dark enough, I just added more alcohol and coloring. I mixed up the rice just by squishing it around in the bag. I used neon and regular food coloring. Then I dumped the bags out onto cookie sheets that were lined with paper towels so the rice could dry. (I didn't have to drain the bags like I did when I dyed pasta.) I was in love with the vibrant colors!

(My first photo collage!)

I mixed all the pastel colors together first (those from my neon pack) and really liked that combination. It would be great for a spring or Easter project.

Then I added the rest. I could tell immediately that I didn't have enough. When I got to school and dumped it in the sensory tub, it was just a thin layer that barely covered the bottom. But it will do for now and someday I'll make more. I added some little bears that the kids could bury.

Then we used a spinner from our Candy Land Bingo game. Whichever color it landed on was the color of bear they had to find in the rice.

So yes, more rice would have worked better so the kids could dig around a little more. I also put our sand toys in there so the kids could just play.

They really liked that!
So that is the end of our Color week. I hope you got some good ideas!