Letter Aa is for Apple, Alligator... and Arctic Animals!

This past week in our curriculu,m, we were to learn about the letter Aa.

   Here are the activities the little munchkins did for the letter Aa. They used apple pictures to make the letter A and also made an Alligator head by finding teeth that had the letter Aa on it.

What else starts with Aa?  ARCTIC ANIMALS!

    Like how I squeezed my own theme in this week?  =)  I do it all the time!

   Teaching little ones about animals is always so much fun. I love the look they get on their faces when they learn new facts about animals.

   This past week I saw those faces a lot as I taught them about the Arctic and the Antarctic and the animals that live there.

   Before we went into depth about the different animals that live in these cold regions, we explored the climate and what can be found in that type of environment.
   I extended the learning to our water table, that I turned into a Polar Ice Land! I froze water in ice cube trays and in a big bowl and added polar animal toys into the water table. Man, did I have some issues trying to get the kids to take turns for the first few days!  No one ever wanted to leave the water table. (Don't ask why the kiddos pictured don't have smocks on... I just noticed it too!!)

   It was too bad that I had to step in and regulate though when, even after reviewing the rules, I still had a few kids licking (YES- licking) the ice cubes and even throwing the ice cubes against the wall to watch them break!  I guess they were just experimenting, huh?

   I also used these Polar Animal Spelling mats that I found at 2Teaching Mommies blog, which is a blog I visit frequently because I love her units! 

   Click on the picture to download your own free copy of this Polar Lands unit! I will be using some of the material in this unit with my little one at home too!

   This week, they also continued to work on matching number to set. I created these simple Snowflake puzzles for the classroom, for the winter season.

   

          You can purchase your own set here, on SALE this week only, in my TPT store.

   There is so much to learn about the Arctic region and the life there. It's too bad that I do not have enough time to dive into it as much as I would like to.... But as always, I will do what I can!  =)