Due to some pathological need I have to complete a subject before I feel I can fully move on to the next one, you may have noticed I have been posting madly all week about the Arctic unit we have been doing. I had been trying to school plan the littles' summer but was completely…
Category: Geography: The Polar Regions
Dr Seuss School: Ice is Nice
Dr Seuss' Ice is Nice book is perfect for bringing together all of the work we have done over the past two unit studies, being about both the arctic and the antarctic. We have done so many activities with snow and ice is was hard to find authentic and fun learning activities to go with…
Around the World with FIAR: The Very Last First Time
We are currently studying the Arctic circle, using FIAR books as our core. Although we use the text from FIAR, I will only be posting the extra activities we do. The Very Last First Time chronicles a young Inuit girl's very first time mussel gathering under the ice of the oceans. I particularly like the…
Around the World with FIAR: Snowflake Bentley
We are currently studying the Arctic circle, using FIAR books as our core. Although we use the text from FIAR, I will only be posting the extra activities we do. This week we read Snowflake Bentley, which is a stunning and probably my favourite ever FIAR book. It has the most beautiful real photos of…
Around the World with FIAR: Katy and the Snow Plough
Katy is a tractor who pushes a bulldozer in the summer and a snowplow in the winter. One winter the snow is particularly bad and only Katy is strong and resilient enough to clear the snow and make it possible for the townspeople to do their jobs. Geographical Theme for the Term Katy is working…
Around the World with FIAR: Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening
Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening is a poem by one of my very favourite poets, Robert Frost. This a simple poem which Frost claims he wrote in just one night. Simple it maybe, but it has a class that spans the ages. As it is short I have included it here: Whose…
Around the World with FIAR: Owl Moon and the Arctic Circle
Owl moon is a book about a father taking his child out one evening to hunt for owls. We slowly worked through the FIAR manual and Bible and Character manual produced by FIAR. However, my main goal for using these books was geographical, just to introduce the little ones to world geography. I would be…
Continent Study: Antarctica – Digging Deeper
I still felt there was much to explore in our Antarctica study but we were running out of time. I chose three more, fairly effortless activities to do to wind up our studies. Modern autobiographies about visiting Antarctica Much of what we had learnt about this pole came from secondary sources, although we did look…
Continent Study: Antarctica
This post contains all the work we have done for our multi-age continent study. Week 1: Antarctica: Resources Week 2: Antarctica: Where in the World? Week 3: Antarctica: Making a Cookie Map Week 4: Antarctica: Creating a Research Lab Week 5: Antarctica: Experiments in the Snow Week 6: Antarctica Inspired Art Week 7: Antarctica: How Do Animals…
Explorer and Leadership Study: Ernest Shackleton in Antarctica
I remember my Dad dropping Shackleton's name into the conversation often when I was little. He was, quite rightly, very proud to have 'connections' to this great explorer, albeit it on my mother's side rather than his own. I grew up knowing we were related and that this was a good thing. However, I had…
Making an Antarctica Continent Box
At the beginning of this study I had been looking forward to making an official Antarctica Continent box. I have never made a continent box before and I loved the very idea of collecting themed bits and pieces. I mean, is there anything more fun than that? I knew exactly the box I had in…
Continent Study: Antarctica verses the Arctic
Most of our information had come from reading 'Polar Explorers for kids' out loud. This book is divided into Arctic and Antarctic explorers and contains so much more information on topics other than just explorers: The other two books are fun additions which I read through a few times. We LOVE Dr Seuss in this…
Continent Study: Antarctica – How do animals survive the sub-zero temperatures?
Antarctica doesn't have the diversity of wildlife that other continents have. Those animals which are able to survive the sub-zero temperatures do so because they have adapted to this environment to reduce heat loss, often developing warm windproof coats and layers of blubber. We did an experiment to investigate how blubber helps to keep an…
Continent Study: Antarctica inspired Art
I really do feel that we made the most of our one day of snow! The older ones played in the park with their friends having snowball fights, they built a snow man, I built the younger ones an Antarctic Research Laboratory and proceeded to do waaaaay more experiments with snow than is strictly sane.…
Continent Studies: Antarctica – Experiments in the Snow
If you read yesterday's post you will know that we created an Antarctica Research Lab, in which the girls had a lot of fun doing some free play experimentation: As much fun as they had, free play wasn't the only thing I had in mind for our laboratory. Oh no, when snow falls one must…