Canada and a Narwhal Tusk

We finished our Canada unit with some home-made worksheets and some fun activities.

A year in the life of a reindeer.

A clutch of snowy owl eggs

An ice floe

The Boy made a to scale narwhal tusk

Measuring and comparing the distance a reindeer travels in a year.

Thank you to our lovely friend Charlotte who moved from the UK to Canada and sent us some fun and brilliant information and photos about Canada and the differences between our two countries. x

Canada Continued: Arctic Hares and Inuit Snow Glasses

We had an interesting morning learning about arctic hares which are also known as snow rabbits. We took the car for a 40mph spin which is how fast arctic hares can run - that's crazy fast for such a small bundle of cute fluff. We realised that they are the exact same height as Sunbaby - 70cm. Love :) We watched some videos about them, made some easy pictures and read about them in books.

Arctic hares have black eyelashes to protect them from the sun's glare from the sky and reflecting off of the snow. Over the years we have studied bio-mechanics and their origins in the animal world. In light of this we made Inuit snow glasses which were used to protect human eyes.

Reading for The Boy and word mining for Panda Girl

Silly igloo stuff :D

We spent a whole morning learning about the Tundra as a biome

Canadian Animal Study

We spent a relaxing morning copying Inuit orca art. You can see how the style has gone down the continent through the tribes as they branched out across the land over thousands of years. It's subtly different but beautifully similar to other Native American art and I love that idea. 

Panda Girl and The Boy created a quiz about arctic animals for their older sisters to try. 

And Papa had a go too! 

I gave the kiddies free reign with their polar bear art and these are their designs. 

Understanding how orcas use echolocation.

Orcas are top of their food chain. 

Inukshuk Art

All four kiddies requested to join in this one. 🙂

 I love how they turned out. 

Canada

A new project for a new year :)

The beginnings of a Canada lapbook

Guessing Canada's numbers. I gave the children numbers on the red cards and they had to match them correctly to the fact.

Canada's resources. I hid these around the room and they had to find all 11.

Comparing our weights and heights with polar bear weights and heights!

Putting Canada's history in chronological order.

'Canada' comes from the Huron word, 'kanata' which means village or settlement.

Learning about land used for farming, nomadic herding, industry etc.

We watched Ray Mears' series in Canada...

...and The Boy had a go at some of his bushcraft ideas/

Finding Canada on the globe and locating the St. Lawrence River

And in an atlas.

The children made the St. Lawrence River so they could see it's size and significance: along its shores are Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec, the Great Lakes and Niagara Falls feed into it and it is a border between Canada and the US.

Ottawa cityscapes

Canada related alliterations.

And learning three ways heat can move, via the medium of an igloo: radiation, convection and conduction.