P is for Polar Bear

Today we welcomed Bonnie from the Assiniboine Park Zoo. She taught us all about polar bears in the wild and about our polar bear friends at the zoo. It was very interesting and neat to hear her personal stories about Hudson, Storm, Aurora, and Kaska. We touched polar bear and arctic fox fur, built polar bear habitats, and did an experiment using lard to recreate blubber. We also pretended we were polar bears who needed ice floes in order to hunt seals and fish. It was similar to musical chairs, but with an arctic twist! 

LEARNING ABOUT POLAR BEARS

BUILDING A POLAR BEAR HABITAT

(The penguins are there to trick the kids but it didn't work!  

We already know that penguins are NOT arctic animals.)

HOW POLAR BEARS STAY WARM: THE BLUBBER EXPERIMENT 

HUNTING ON ICE FLOES 

Friday Fun

Today we worked on patterns.  We looked at different kinds of patterns (colour, size, shape, direction).  We are also learning to identify whether a series is or isn't a pattern.  We had so much fun figuring these out.

We also did some directed drawing today.  Besides being an artistically important activity, these projects help us to strengthen our fine motor control and our listening skills.  We started with a snowman as our winter theme winds down.  Next we will be working on penguins to go with our polar animals study.

A Peek at Our Day

This week, we started new 'Welcome Work' baskets.  Once again, they were a total hit.

 Winter Picture Books

 ABC Ordering - Penguins

Snowflake Pattern Block Mats (back by popular demand)
 

Snowflake Number Puzzles

Playdough Mats 

We also read a fun story called La moufle. Here is a video of it:

Here is an English version by Jan Brett.

Winter Walk and Survey

We finally went on our winter walk this morning.  We made observations and collected interesting things while we walked around the courtyard.  The kids were especially interested in the animal tracks in the snow.  Some of the kids were certain that they'd found bear tracks!  Could there be a polar bear living in our courtyard?!?  We decided that our next classroom theme should be polar bears. 

When we got back inside, we had hot cocoa and chocolate milk.  We answered a survey by deciding which drink we preferred.  Hot cocoa was the winner by far.  I think the marshmallows might have swayed a few kindergartners!

Some of the kids chose to take a close look at our winter walk collection.

Monday Fun

We continued our winter studies with more snow in our sensory bin.  This time, we used paint to make it beautiful.  We mixed colours, painted paths, and were very surprised by how quickly the snow soaked up the paint.

 

We also worked on the letter E and the number 3, and played some games to keep moving.  With all of the indoor recess lately, learning through games helps us to use up our extra energy!!