The Artic is an exciting biome to teach in your classroom. There are so many different kinds of animals that you can talk about as well as the interesting climate. Here are some great activities to incorporate into your Artic lesson plans.
Penguins are one animal that many children are familiar with in the Artic. They make a great topic for activities because of this. A good introduction to penguin activities is to tell your class some interesting facts about penguins. Penguins spend most of their time in the water. They are white and black. You may even want to mention that penguins cannot fly however they are great swimmers.
For this game you will want to explain to your students that penguins protect the eggs that are laid by putting them between their feet. Dive the group into two teams. Give each team two bandannas. Have the first kid in line put his feet together and have another student loosely tie them together so that he can move has to keep his heels together. Then have the two teams race trying to move an egg between their feet to a line and back. While they walk, have the team tie the next racers feet together with the other bandanna so that the race can keep going. First team to have all its members race the egg down and back wins.
Another great penguin activity to do with younger children is to sing the adorable penguin song taken off of preschooleducation.com. This song is sung to the tune of I am a little teapot. It goes like this: I’m a little penguin, black and white. Short and wobbly, an adorable sight. I can’t fly at all, but I love to swim. So I’ll waddle to the water and dive right in!
Another great animal to talk about while learning about the Artic is Polar bears. Explain to your students that Polar bears love to eat seals. Then proceed to play the Polar bear and seal game. To play this game Lay out, using scotch tape or hoola hoops, five icebergs, spaced fairly wide apart in a circle. Pick one kid to play the polar bear, and everybody else will be seals. The seals are safe on the icebergs, but not when they are in the “water”. When you yell “go!” all the seals have to leave their iceberg and “swim” to another one without getting “eaten” (tagged). Anyone who is tagged becomes a polar bear. When everyone has made it to their new iceberg, yell “go!” again to start the next round. This can help show kids what kind of species live in the arctic and also help them remember what polar bears eat.
These activities will help your students learn about the Artic while having fun. Its important for students to remember what they learned and through activities like these they will retain the information that teachers give them. These activities are sure to be a hit with your students!
sources:
http://www.preschooleducation.com/spenguin.shtml
