This was meant to be our first January unit, but lack of routine and school was getting to us so we went ahead and started a week early.

First we looked for the Arctic Circle on our globe and talked about the different countries that make up the Arctic land.  I pointed out the Arctic Ocean.  (We haven’t really talked about the names of the oceans yet.  Does anyone have a good song for that?)

I printed out a few Arctic Animal Bingo and by printing the bingo ball cards twice we could play memory as well.

Although I don’t like Nickelodeon characters, I was pleased with the Diego Arctic animal cards

because they gave concise information about each animal.

I printed them out and paired the information card with my own Arctic animal nomenclature cards.

I much prefer having real photographs of the animals.

We have been reading lots of books about the Arctic and about polar bears.  We are focusing mostly on polar bears.  With the Arctic Toob {affiliate}, Bear put together a polar bear habitat. I showed her some Google images of the Canadian Arctic and she chose one for me to print for the background.  She used white organza fabric I had and some white Duplo for the snow and ice.  Her animals barely show up in the photo.

We talked about camouflage and why animals in the Arctic tend to be white. I painted some popsicle sticks (I had 5 different colors) and we talked about which ones stood out more on the white paper.  Then we did a hunt in the yard to see what color sticks were better camouflaged against our yellow lawn.

 

We experienced how blubber keeps a polar bear warm.  (We also did this experiment last year.)

 I used butter and not lard in the ziploc bag and since our hands never came in contact with the butter, I can use it for baking.

  I printed out an early reader from Enchanted Learning called How Many Arctic Animals.  This counting booklet was too easy for her in terms of math but she enjoyed writing her numbers.
I also found an early reader to print at Making Learning Fun.  She loves to read it to me.

We read Arctic Community by Bobbie Kalman and I Is for Inuksuk {affiliate} and then built our own inuksuks after a nature walk to find rocks.  I glued the sculptures with hot glue so they couldn’t be accidentally knocked down, but they are still fragile.  We displayed them where J-jo can’t reach.

(I made the one on the left.)

Stay tuned for more Arctic Science experiments next week and the list of Arctic books we read will be posted Saturday.

Arctic Unit Week 2
Books for Arctic Unit

Linked to Preschool Corner.

Our foray into pointillism was piqued by reading Katie’s Sunday Afternoon.  Bear loves these books about Katie who can go through a frame and enter a painting.

The idea of pointillism is not to mix colors.  This allows for optical mixing – your eye mixes the colors as it sees the two colors next to each other.  Georges Seurat began this art movement.  One of his famous paintings is An Afternoon at La Grande Jatte.  This painting took him two years to finish.

If you scroll down on this page, you can see a close up of part of the painting that shows the dots of paint.
Here is a You Tube video that shows some of Seurat’s work.

I gave Bear a Seurat coloring page. I let her paint in the picture with the end of a pencil (the eraser side). 

She didn’t finish and had no desire to try her own creation with dot painting.

If you’ve done any art with your child this week based on an artist or illustration style, or taught some of the elements and principles of art, or studied a musician or any other type of artist, please join the Linky.  Please remember to link back.  

Comments are appreciated, especially if you link up! 

I made Bear a Santa Lucia crown following this tutorial.   I added popsicle sticks sandwiched inside the white felt of the candles to get them to stay upright.  You can see one’s shadow as the light from the tree shines through the felt.

As much as I wanted to make her a white gown, in the end I decided my white slip and a white shirt would do just fine.  We tied a red Christmas ribbon around her for the sash.

She dressed this paper doll (found via Our Little Nature Nest).  Although I liked the story provided at Our Little Nature Nest, I decided in the end, to tell her part of the true story of the Saint.  Bear adores the paper doll because we read the book Kirsten’s Surprise last week and this paper doll is a replica of Kirsten.

Here’s a bit of background I gave Bear:

Saint Lucia became a devout Christian after prayers to Saint Agatha saved her mother from illness.  She convinced her mother that they should give her dowry (money you need when you get married) away to help the poor.  It is said they did this at night by candlelight and so she wore a wreath of candles, so her hands would be free to give out the money and food.  Santa Lucia’s bright candles remind us to be the light in the darkness. And her offerings of food and drink remind us to be kind and giving to others.
(I left out the next bit in telling Bear the story.)
She also promised herself to God and did not want to marry the man to whom she was engaged.  She was blinded (although in some versions she gauges out her own eyes to scare away her fiance) and tortured and finally slain.  The red slash symbolizes the blood, the white gown her purity before God, the candlelit wreath symbolizes the light by which she and her mother donated the dowry.  I could not find anything to tell me why the tradition involves Santa Lucia delivering breakfast to her family.
Does anyone know?

I wanted to make Lussekatter from the recipe on this post but I was deterred by the price of saffron.  Instead, I made a challah recipe and shaped the dough into the traditional S shapes.  I also took some of the dough and made a miniature braided crown too (as seen at this recipe for Saint Lucia’s braided bread).  Bear distributed the Lussekatter at school.

 We ate some for breakfast.  Breakfast was a candlelit affair – with just two battery operated candles and the Christmas tree lit.  It was really magical and the whole family had a wonderful time.  It was just perfect.  We can’t wait to do this again next year!