Tundra Biome Unit

Why not jump straight from the hot and wet rainforest straight into the Tundra? I like polar bears so I might have been a bit biased!

Our information sheets for this unit came from a seller on teachers pay teachers. I love that site! We found this amazing Tundra Biome pack. I loved all the information and illustrations and the kids loved doing the included experiment using shortening to act as insulating blubber.

 We also purchased the book What If There Were No Lemmings to use as our read aloud for this week. It focuses on how taking one small animal, the lemming, out of a food chain would affect the entire food web. I really love this series!

We again used the National Geographic Animal Encyclopedia to find animals for this habitat at discuss the various adaptations they had developed to live in such a cold climate.

You know there is a Magic Tree house Book about the arctic, Polar Bears Past Bedtime  and an accompanying guide book filled with facts and fascinating information. I love that there is an educational series out there that the kids actually LIKE to read.

I think it is really important for the kids to actually SEE what we are studying versus just reading a bunch of facts from a book. Since a field trip to the tundra was out of the question we watched several educational videos on youtube this week as well. I am constantly amazed at the variety of content available on youtube. We watched polar bears and their cubs, snowy owls, and several clips about global warming and the effects of habitat loss on Arctic animals.

We found a few arctic animals at our local aquarium and were very excited to get to watch their antics. This little penguin kept coming over to play with the girls and they couldn't have been more excited.  

We also made sure to checkout any arctic animals at our local zoo while we were there. The polar bear was a bigger hit with mom then the kids...hence no photo of the encounter. I was too busy trying to get the kids to come back to the exhibit and listen to me read the informational signs. As you can tell by the faces when we stopped for lunch they were totally over my taking pictures and rambling various facts about animals

The tundra unit was a lot of fun for sure. Total for this unit was $8 for the book we were unable to find at the local library. If you do a unit on the tundra I would love to hear about your resources!