Polar Bear Fun

We had fun learning about polar bears today. Did you know their fur is actually clear, not white? Neither did I. Mother Goose Time told us this and that the clear fur traps heat by absorbing the sun. There was even a science experiment to show how this works. Fill two clear containers with hot water and record the temp. Cover one jar with clear plastic wrap like Saran Wrap, and the other jar with a white cloth and place them both in the sun. Wait a little while and check the temp. of both jars again. That makes perfect sense. It's cloudy here most of December so we haven't tried this yet but plan to as soon as we see the sun! Great, hands on activity to help her remember this fun fact.

Our skies remained grey all day long but that didn't stop us from playing through the rest of today's lesson. Jumping Icebergs was a big hit. As suggested, we laid out a few towels and pretended they were icebergs. We stood on our own towels and when I called out, "Jump!" we jumped to a new iceberg and then pretended to scoop fish out of the ocean and gobbled them down. It got pretty silly after a few jumps. 

Next we got out the bear counting manipulatives from Day 6 and some white washcloths. I told little miss Minnie Mouse to put them on the icebergs however she wanted to. 

 She chose to group them by size or as she said, "the cute little baby bears, big kids, mommies and daddies". Then she had the parent bears jump from iceberg to iceberg to get to their correct color baby. As you can see the big kids spent the whole time swimming in the ocean. 

To finish the morning we got out the supplies to make a polar bear mask. MGT gave us a mask cutout, a souffle cup, a black pompom, yarn, and those great double sided adhesive dots. I showed my granddaughter the polar bear picture and the instruction examples they provided and we talked about how she wanted her mask to look. It was a quick and fun project. 

In the middle of the project she decided the adhesive circles would be a perfect addition to her contact paper tree.  

She's pretty pleased with herself.