Burr, it is cold outside! This was the perfect week for our preschools to explore and learn about animals that live in the cold. Our students participated in fun learning activities that focused on penguins, polar bears, and other arctic animals. We also practiced identifying the letter P and making the “P” sound. We read some adventurous and fun books like Polar Bear, and Polar Bear What Do You Hear? Hungry Hungry Penguins and Who Lives in the Cold?
Our students are also working on identifying and matching numbers 1-5 and 1-10. When reading the book Hungry, Hungry Penguin, the students helped count how many fish the penguin ate and went on to find and place the matching number in the book to go along with the number of fish eaten. After counting fish in our story, students had the chance to go pretend fishing and feed our classroom penguin, “Pippy”, practicing their fine motor skills
Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle was a favorite with our students. The rhythmic and repetitive pattern of the story captured everyone’s attention. A board book version of the story was used, paired with laminated pictures for the students to match each animal in the book while reading aloud. Since the book has repetitive lines, we utilized a red switch voice output device for our non-verbal students to help them participate in telling the story. After reading our story, the students participated in sensory/art activities, which included finger painting with white and blue paint to create a print of a white polar bear. In preschool we love to get hands on and get messy!
Throughout the week with the help of pictures, the classroom smartboard, and scholastic short videos, the students learned that the polar bear, arctic hare, seals, and some penguins live where it is cold all year round. During sensory play, students explored with white kinetic sand and played with arctic animals. To help students understand the meaning of cold, we filled sensory trays with ice cubes and cold water. Unlike the penguins and polar bears, most of our students were not fans of playing in the cold water and ice, but they were certainly fans of learning about animals that live in the cold.
