Arctic Animals Preschool Theme

Below you can find tons of fun and engaging Arctic Animals Activities! Pick and choose preschool activities for your lesson or download a free copy of our Arctic Animals Preschool Lesson Plan to save you time!
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Planning your Arctic Animals and Ice Theme

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Arctic Animals products and their Arctic Animals Theme Planning Guide for free!
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Download our Free Arctic  Animals and Ice Preschool Sample Lesson Plan

Paper Plate Walrus

Love these paper plate Walruses! This is such a fun idea from  member Lauren B.! These look simple and fun to make, I love arts and crafts that use materials already on hand!

Paper Plate Polar Bears

Make a fun Polar Bear craft with your preschooler! 
Find the details on this easy and fun to make craft on my Polar Bear Paper Plate Craft Tutorial. 
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                             Puffy Paint Polar Bear

Creating Art with puffy paint is so much fun, and it's simple to make! Simply mix up equal parts shaving cream and white school glue, add in some color if desired. Glue a black polar bear cutout onto a sheet of blue construction paper. Have your students cover the polar bear with white puffy paint.

Arctic Process Art

Make your own arctic inspired process art, by painting on frozen paper!
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Polar Bear Snack

Serve up a fun theme related snack! See the directions on my Polar Bear Snack Tutorial
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​Arctic Animal Song

Learn all about the different types of arctic animals with a fun and interactive song polar animal song.

​5 Little Polar Bears Rhyme

Learn a new rhyme! Try this 5 little polar rhyme with your preschoolers.

Arctic Dramatic Play

Turn your Dramatic Play space into the Arctic this week. Add White Felt, and Winter Clothes.

Arctic Animal Rescue-Coming Soon!

Arctic Small World Play

*This week you can add White Felt (to represent snow), styrofoam blocks,  Pretend Arctic Animals, Foam Cubes, and small clear plastic containers (to represent Icebergs). 

Make your own blocks

Make your own arctic animal blocks. Print real animal images, cut them to size, and use clear contact paper, or Mod Podge to secure the images to your blocks. This set of arctic animal blocks was created by our reader Erica P. of Erica's Educare Learning Center.
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Photo Credit: Erica P. of Erica's Educare Learning Center.

Arctic Small World Play

Brrr.. the Arctic is cold. Invite your preschoolers to recreate the arctic! Set up a large water proof tray or a sensory bin, and include ice cubes in your small world play.

Glacier Sculptures

Here is a fun building challenge for preschoolers!
Build an ice sculpture with ice cubes!
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Arctic Animal Rescue

Freeze arctic animals inside of ice cubes and using droppers or spray bottles filled with warm water invite preschoolers to rescue the frozen animals.

Match Uppercase & Lowercase Letters

These polar bear letter puzzles are a fun way to practice uppercase-to-lowercase letter matching. 
You can find these easy to assemble puzzles in the Arctic Preschool Activities
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Polar Bear Paw Tracing

Trace the path of polar bear footprints in the snow to find the polar bear! Fun way for preschoolers to practice tracing and following a line from left to right.
Included in the Arctic Preschool Activities
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Get our Arctic Animals pack in our shop!

Icicle Writing​

Break out the mittens, grab an icicle and get to writing!
Use the icicle on colored paper or on the sidewalk to practice writing letter or just scribbling lines and shapes. 

Arctic Animals Story time Activity

Pair a favorite Arctic book with our FREE Arctic Number Puzzles!  Into the Arctic by Roger Priddy is a wonderful book to share with preschoolers during this theme. 

The unique see-through pages capture children's interest as they follow along discovering new arctic animals and finding old favorites through the book. 
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Letter Icebergs

There are two fun ways to set up this activity. 
Freeze letters in individual ice cubes for children to melt and then identify the letter, or  use letter ice cube molds. Students can use salt water to melt the "letter icebergs", or float them in a sensory bin and arrange them to build their names.
Over in the Arctic: Where the Cold Winds Blow
by Marianne Berkes and Jill Dubin
*Way Up in the Arctic 
by Jennifer Ward and Kenneth J. Spengler
Arctic Animals 
by Tad Carpenter
Mama, Do You Love Me? 
by Barbara M. Joosse and Barbara Lavallee

*Arctic Animals Patterning

*Practice Patterning PKPF Arctic Preschool Activities
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                           Iceberg Walk Game ​

Practice counting skills with an Iceberg Walk Game found in our Arctic Animals and Ice Activity pack. Preschoolers will roll the dice and animals will move from icebergs.
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Feed the Polar Bear Counting Game

For this game you will need a stuffed polar bear or photo, dice, a small basket and photos or cutouts of fish. 
Roll a die and announce the number shown. Then collect the same number of fish and add them to the basket to feed the polar bear. 

Size Up Animal Tracks

Look up the size of tracks from Arctic Animals, then make cutouts for children to measure using measuring tape or Unifix cubes. Children can compare their foot length to those of the arctic animals. 

As Big as a Polar Bear

A grown polar bear may be as long as 11 feet and weight as much as 1,000 lbs!
Create an 11'   polar outline on your carpet using masking tape. Have your students lay inside to see how they compare.

Arctic Animals and Camouflage

This is a great week to discuss the word camouflage. Many animals in the arctic have white fur, that allows them to hide against white snowy backdrops.

How I Keep Warm in the Cold

While exploring this unit be sure to engage in discussion about how Arctic animals stay warm in such a cold climate. Challenge children to think about ways they keep warm. Some mechanisms are built in to the body, and others are ones humans invented. Invite children to engage in discussion about ways they keep warm and safe in cold weather. 

How do Polar Bears Stay Warm?

How do polar bears stay warm when it's freezing, snowing, and windy? Preschoolers are curious about how arctic animals stay warm without any winter gear.  Preschoolers love science, and explaining how polar bears stay warm is an excellent opportunity for science exploration. We have all the details for this experiment on our How Polar Bears Stay Warm blog post. 
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Matching Arctic Animals

Discover some of the animals that live in the Arctic with this animal matching game from the Pre-K Printable Fun
Arctic Preschool Activities

Arctic Sensory Exploration

Create your own Arctic Sensory Experience. This Arctic Animal Sensory bin created by our reader Erica P. of Erica's Educare Learning Center. She included frozen ice chunks, glittery foam, and arctic animals.
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Photo Credit: Erica's Educare Learning Center
For this Arctic Animal Sensory Bin created by reader Erica P. of Erica's Educare Learning Center, she included foam pieces which adds a building element to the sensory bin as well.
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Photo Credit: Erica's Educare Learning Center

Where Animals Live

This Sort and Classify Animals set includes 6 different ways to sort & classify animals. 
This week explore where animals live with 8 different location mats. Talk about each location and why certain animals would or would not live there. Pay particular attention to the Arctic and animals that live there. Would a Polar bear live in the desert? Why/why not? How about the ocean, are Polar Bears found in the ocean....sometimes, but do they LIVE there? Hmmm....
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Discover the Arctic

Since a field trip to the Arctic isn't a reasonable activity this week, explore Arctic Animals and geography via photos and videos. Like this fun video about walruses from Kids National Geographic. 
Print out some photos of the Arctic for children to examine with a magnifying glass as well. 
This is also a great time to point out the Arctic point on the top of a globe.

Polar Sensory Bin

Although Penguins don't live in the arctic, you can set up a "Polar Animal Theme" if you wanted to explore animals that live in cold weather climates.
Add ice cubes, including colored ice cubes, and a variety of animals to your sensory bin

A Keen Sense of Smell

A polar bear can smell it's prey under snow and ice up to 10 miles away. Get a better understanding of how a polar bear uses it's sense of smell (and how well it can smell) by conducting a smell investigation. Cut up slices of banana, lemon, and oranges. Place each of them on a paper plate.  While they are blindfolded, have your students try to guess the fruit. Freeze small pieces the fruit in ice cubes, and have your students repeat the experiment, by sniffing the ice cube to see if they can still identify the fruit.

Research an Animal

Have your preschooler pick an animal for the two of you to research together. Look up facts about the animal and watch videos to learn more. Then create a poster or diorama together. Sheena W. created this one with her child featuring a musk ox. 
Once the project is complete encourage your preschooler to share with family or peers and tell them about what they learned. 

*Shape Clip Cards

Support fine motor development and hand-eye coordination with these fun shape clip cards from the Arctic Preschool Activities
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Slide Like a Seal

Practice sliding like a seal! Challenge your preschoolers to move like a seal; Children lie on their stomach then push up on hands until their arms are straight. Then they move across the room dragging their legs behind them. Extend this activity with more animal movements, find more examples here: 13 animal moves to help with your child's gross motor development from Pathways.org

Move Like an Arctic Animal

Use the word wall cards from the Arctic Preschool Activities to inspire all kinds of creative movement with preschoolers!
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Where is the Arctic?

Break out a world map and find which part of the Arctic you live closest to. Take some time to learn about the landscape in the Arctic region, compare that to where you live. 

Flippers or Feet?

Some Arctic animals have flippers and others have feet. Sort them with this activity from the Arctic Preschool Activities pack then discuss the reasons for why each animal has flippers or feet. 
Look up photos that show what the habitat looks like for each animal. 
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Adaptations for Protection

Animals that live in the arctic have special features to help them survive.
White fur to blend into the environment, thick fur & body fat and more. Discuss some of these features and talk about ways humans protect themselves in a variety of environments. We wear clothing that helps us stay cool in hot weather, warm in cold weather, we can wear headphones when it's too noisy, glasses when we don't see well etc. This conversation can certainly be a great time to talk about adaptive equipment. ​

Changes in Weather

How does the environment you live in compare to the Arctic? Does it change throughout the year? Maybe you get snow in winter...this is a good time to work on historical thinking. Challenge children to think about how the weather changes through the year where you live. 

Polar Bears are Nomadic

Discuss the word nomadic. Polar Bears are nomadic animals-they wander from place to place. They travel over drifting icebergs and swim in the cold ocean.

Finger plays, Songs, and Rhymes

Here are some fun Fingerplays, Songs, and Rhymes to use during your circle time and group activities this week. 
This Little Walrus from Mr. Mike TV
An Orca Whale from Jbrary

Themed Calendar

​Use the snowflake cards from the Winter Calendar Activities  set to customize your calendar activities to this theme. 
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Shop for Arctic Animals and Ice Products from Pre-K Printable Fun:

Arctic Animals Preschool Activities

$7.00
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Animals Sorting and Classifying Mats

$4.00
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Arctic Animals Number Puzzles Free

$0.00
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Winter Word Wall Activities

$3.00
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Learning Centers

Preschool Learning Centers are commonly referred to as Preschool Centers, or Learning Spaces. These are activity areas dedicated to a specific type of of play and exploring a variety of topics and activities. Download our Free set of Center Signs!