Continent Study: Antarctica Unit

Yehey! I was able to kick-off our Antarctica unit last week!  I’ll be sharing the first three days of our unit study, and how we go about on learning the continent.

DAY 1:  WHAT AND WHERE IS ANTARCTICA

I introduced the continent.  We discussed where Antarctica is located and why it’s surrounded with ice.

We read Usborne’s Antarctica.  The book is very informative, it got lots of ‘real’ pictures too that attracted my son all the more.  I printed out the map of Antarctica as well.  (FYI:  the map was from Google images)

I provided pictures from Google and instead of printing them on a cardstock, I have them developed in a photo paper to make them look credible.  The pictures were basically composed of icebergs seen in Antarctica, pictures of scientists working, tourists, transportation and other animals inhabiting the region.

I also used these pictures to tell a story... random story about a boy who wanted to explore Antarctica.  He loves to hear it over and over again.

I tried presenting him these postcards and stamps (from Google).  But he just looked at them, asked me questions about the pictures in the cards and that’s it.  He didn’t appreciate them that much.

 

DAY 2:  PENGUINS

Second day is all about Penguins.  As seen below,  I printed this document (Life Cycle of Penguins) which I read from here and got it from here.  Here I talked about how Penguins live and survive the cold and harsh weather in Antarctica.  How the Mommy and Daddy penguins care for their young and explore the ocean to look for food to feed their chick.

We also watched “March of the Penguins” together.  Oh boy, he enjoyed the film!  He kept telling his Daddy all about the “bad bird” eating the baby penguin :)  Having seen the film, he would imitate the penguin’s walk around the house and would make their sounds.  It’s quite amazing how he developed an interest on these birds!

With our Penguin Safari Toob, I made control cards (Arctic and Antarctic Mini Unit Activities) so we can play matching games with them.  As we played along, I explained how each bird differs from each other.

Here he is matching the penguins with the control cards.

He loves playing puzzles and enjoys putting labels.  This is a homemade puzzle out of foam sheets.  I had this since last year and this is the first time we worked on it.  What I did here was selected a penguin outline from Google and cut out its parts to form a puzzle.

I also purchased the 3-part cards to go along with our Antarctic unit.  My son is addicted to these cards! Really, I tell you... he loves loves loves nomenclature cards.

DAY 3:  OTHER INHABITANTS OF ANTARCTICA

Here’s our little Antarctica.  My son helped in putting all the animals in it.  I plan to get wooden trays this month so we can build a much interesting one.

There are also scientists who lives in Antarctica to do some research.  We discussed how they dress up and play pretend using this paperdoll which I got from here.  I also dressed my son (winter clothing) so he can pretend he is one of the scientist (no pictures though).

So aside from penguins, we learned about the different animals that live in Antarctica.  Aside from using our animal figures, I also made 3-part cards for these animals.  As much as I wanted to use real pictures, I decided to save some ink so I just used black-and-white pictures and colored them using colored pens.

Here’s a closer look.

So far, my son’s interest was more on the animals.  He’s always fascinated with them especially if he learns about their habitat. He also liked the pictures he loves to hear me tell stories about them (and he likes to ASK a lot of questions about them too!).  So what I would probably do for other Continent Unit Study is to focus on materials that I know he’ll grasp immediately. And it will give me enough reason to add up “new” learning materials each year (rather than preparing materials in one blow!) as he progress.

Next would be math related activities and crafts.

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