Trekking across The States - Alaska

With our passports in our hand, we boarded our little (pretend) plane again and headed to Alaska! My husband and I had the privilege of going to Alaska a few years ago (it was a VERY quick visit) and I was fascinated by this beautiful, cold, state. Here's what Channing and I discovered this week (hold your hats because there is a LOT).

We found out that the State flower is a Forget-me-not and that there are MANY polar animals that live there. AS you can see, Channing was not in the mood for "coloring").

We looked at the shape of Alaska and drew an igloo (the big circle).
This was one of my favorite projects that I had done with Kindergarten many times. We read "Mama do you love me?" by and then made this picture and stuck the words in order at the bottom (Channing loves doing this).

We talked about dog sleds in Alaska and then played "race to the igloo"

We used some counting mats to practice more/less than numbers. We put a number card on each mat and counted the correct number of polar bears and then add the "more" or "less" word to the correct mat.

We did another counting mat activity, this time with an Eskimo and King Salmon.

We read "Living in the Arctic" by Allan Fowler and learned that while Inuit people do build igloos, they mostly build homes made of stone or covered with animal skin (these days, many Inuit people live in the town in houses too).

We played an Igloo game where you roll the dice and cover each square on the igloo with a mini marshmallow - whoever covers theirs first wins! I let Channing have 5 little marshmallows when he was done :-)

We read "The Arctic Habitat" by Bobbie Kalman and then talked about the kids of animals that live in the arctic. We also did a sorting activity and made a special book about arctic animals (You'll find the special animal book we made as part of the download but I won't post about it until next week).

We played a game called "Melt the ice", which I saw over at Little Giraffes and changed it up just a little bit for Channing. Needless to say that this was probably his FAVORITE activity of the week and he (of course) won! I have no hope against that kid :-)

Here's a pic of him "holding the ice" for 5 seconds, trying to melt it.

He played with his Animal Planet "polar animals" set that he got for Christmas.

We read "The Northern Lights" by Susan Canizares and then painted out own picture of this beautiful natural display of color.

We learned some really interesting facts about Polar bears......I'm not sure if you know this or not but a Polar Bears fur is actually translucent - it just looks white because it reflects the color of the snow and ice!

After learning some Polar bear facts, we did a little science experiment..........it didn't really work out too well for us because I didn't have and Crisco (I really thought I had some in the cupboard but upon searching, discovered that I did not!).....anyway, what you do is stick your hand in ice and water to see how cold it is.......brrrrr.



Now pack a glove with Crisco (I used petroleum Jelly which didn't work too well) and stick you hand in there. Dip it in the ice and it won't feel very cold. This shows how the layer of blubber under their fur/skin keeps arctic animals warm..........I got this idea from an old Mailbox magazine that I have. We'll have to try it again after I get some Crisco.

We then drew a picture of 3 things that Polar bears like to do.

Other things we did but I didn't get photos of:

Ate some Salmon

Used our Alaska 3 part cards and See. Trace and Make cards
Built an igloo our of sugar cubes and frosting

Did some coin rubbings of the Alaskan Quarter

Read "Polar Bear, Polar Bear what do you hear?" by Bill Martin and "The Three Snowy Bears" by Jan Brett.

Looked at the PowerPoint from 1+1+1=1 about Alaska

**you'll find it in the members only section.....if you haven't joined, you should consider it because Carisa has TONS of "extra" things - like the PowerPoint's for all the States of America PLUS PowerPoint's for all the letters of the Alphabet too.........right now the cost is 10 dollars to join but in February she'll be putting up the price a little, so get in now!**

Also, don't forget to check out Montessori Tidbits for some additional Alaskan fun :-)

The clip art I used to make these printables is copyright and used with permission. It is designed by:

Dianne. J Hook from DJ Inkers

The cute graphics I used to make the "Trekking" button are from Scrappin Doodles. Thank you Denyse for allowing me to use them!

PS - OH MY WORD!!!!!! I just found this whole unit from Valerie......why had I nor seen this before!! Anyway, this is SUPER and will go along GREAT with Alaska!! Make sure you check it out.

I am going to link this to:

ABC and 123