Arctic week- FIAR

Today is a lazy Sunday for me I am still in my pj's. I cannot recall the last time I stayed in my pj's all day but at least I match, pink plaid fuzzy pants, pink striped shirt, and fuzzy pink socks! The kids are having movies afternoon right now and watching Legend of the Gaurdians while eating freshley popped popcorn
giving me the opportunity to write in my blog.

So with the 4 yr old we started rowing The Very Last First Time, a book from the Five in A Row lessons. So we are going arctic this week....

On Monday we painted ice fishing holes with oil pastels and watercolors then I gave my daughter an Inuit outfit I bought from Build a Bear a few months back. We then talked about the weather in the Arctic and the clothes they wear, and the types of foods the Inuit eat. Then her bear went Ice fishing.


We are lucky enough to have a great zoo close by that has many polar animals so we attended a Zoo class that I set up today for our Homeschool group on the Arctic. The kids got to feel real polar bear fur and seal fur plus learn lots of fun and interesting facts on Arctic animals.

Building our own igloos out of sugar cubes after reading Immi's Gift were much harder than I expected to make due to the fact that they won't melt and hold together. Our igoos kept falling apart! It was still fun and we got to discuss how a real igloo is put together and how it keep the inuit warm. My daughters decorated hers like Immi did in the story.



Making our own Inuksuk's and some Arctic creatures out of white model magic air dry clay. The small animals were made for an Inuit game that you toss them in the air and whichever lands on it's base you receive a point for. The person scoring 30 points first wins.



My oldest is studying Wolves and reading Julie of the Wolves for his Literature unit this week. He is also doing a research paper on the Black swamp.

In addition to our arctic unit the children also got to see physics in action by watching the tree company cut down 3 huge branches off of our huge 200+ year old Scarlet Oak in our back yard. they thought it was cool how they directed where the linbs fell by using ropes. They also are having fun just counting the rings in the tree limbs. The limbs they took off are bigger than most average size trees. Now my husband and I are brain storming what we can build with all our natural wood. a log cabin for the kids, stools and tables, a fortress, totems, so many ideas. Right now its a fun jungle gym for the kids to climb on.



My 4 year old has been working on her handwriting by writing thank cards to put with all the boxes of Girl Scout cookies she sold.

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The Arctic was a lot of fun, next week we are studying Chile and a few other assorted topics.