There’s always something about polar bear, walrus and penguin that excites my kids.
We love to go to the animals shelter and see the polar bears swim freely in the huge aquarium, and the killer whale (orca) makes stunning performances.
We’ve also had a small chance to encounter with small wild and shy Arctic Fox in the cold winter of Japan few years ago.
Hence, I created this Arctic Animals Pack for preschool.
And they are so in love with it!
I hope you would love this pack as much as we do!
Getting Ready for Arctic Animals Pack
Good news is, this pack does not need any preparation.
You can just print them, and set to go!
But you would need some everyday supplies such as the scissors to cut, glue to paste and crayons to circle.
Yep, just those 3!
The 14 Activities in Arctic Animals Pack
There are 14 activities in this packet. Your kids would surely have a blast!
Let me break these 14 activities into 3 chunks of parts so that it’s easier for you to navigate.
- Part #1 : Fine Motor Skills (11 Activities)
- Part #2 : Math (2 Activities)
- Part #3 : Literacy (1 Activity)
Arctic Animals Pack Part #1: Fine Motor Skills
Since this pack is created for 3-5 years old in mind, it is filled with lots of fine motor skills activities.
There are 11 exciting sets in this part.
I would break this Part 1 into 4 small section for you to easily navigate.
- Section #1 : Hand Grips Activities
- Section #2 : Categorization
- Section #3 : Matching
- Section #4 : Sorting
- Section #5 : Pattern
☑️ Fine Motor Activity Section #1 : Hand Grips Activities
Playing and doing a lot of activities using their bare hands is so important for kids at preschool age.
These activities would be the foundation of their ability to draw and write in the next few years.
In this Arctic Animals Pack, I have included 2 fun hand-grips-related activities :
👉 Fine Motor Activity #1 : Scissor Cutting Skills
This set of activity would allow your kids to practice their scissors cutting skills.
You don’t have to pre-cut the cutting strips.
My kids love to see the papers dangling as they cut the lines.
There are various lines to be cut including cutting horizontal lines, vertical lines, diagonal lines and zigzag lines.
They would also have the chance to cut shapes such as circle shape, triangle shape and rectangle shape.
👉 Fine Motor Activity #2 : Do-a-Dots
Do-a-dot activity is perfect for preschoolers for so many reasons!
It helps kids to practice their eye-hand coordination, their hand grips on the dot markers and perfect for one-to-one correspondence skills.
In this Arctic Animals pack, we are going to dot the Killer Whale (orca), Moose and the adorable Narwhals.
☑️Fine Motor Activity Section #2 : Categorization
There are 2 categorization activities in this pack which is Finding the Odd Ones and solve the pre-scrambled puzzles.
Let me share a sneak peek of the activities.
👉 Fine Motor Activity #3 : Odd Ones
In this activity, kids need to sort and identify which Arctic Animal is different.
And then circle the different Arctic Animals.
👉 Fine Motor Activity #4 : Puzzles
Puzzle activity is great for many reasons and one of those is to practice the kids’ ability to solve problems.
It might not be real life problems that they are solving, but well, it can be a start for them to learn patience and pay attention to details of situation.
This Arctic Animals pack include pre-scrambled puzzle, which means you totally don’t have to pre-cut anything before activity.
Just print out the pre-scrambled puzzle, and hand them to your kids for them to solve.
Their task is to solve the puzzles and once solved, they need to cut and paste the matching pieces in the given boxes.
I have also included the Answer Key to each of the Arctic Animals puzzle for your convenience or for your kids to self check their puzzle.
☑️Fine Motor Activity Section #3 : Matching
Matching is a huge life skills need to be mastered by preschoolers to save our own sanity. Ha!
Why would I say that?
Imagine them putting on mismatched mittens to play outside in the snow, or putting on mismatched socks.
It is sore to our eyes!
Not to mention it would lead to meltdown because they themselves find it ‘not pretty because it has lost its matching friend’
But well, we love them regardless, right?
Ability to identify and match the same thing would help our kids a lot in their real life and academic world.
There are 3 Matching Activities in this Arctic Animals pack.
- Shadow Matching
- Picture Matching
- Shape Matching
👉 Fine Motor Activity #5 : Shadow Matching
My kids love this activity because it challenges them to pay attention to details to find the matching shadows.
Cut the Arctic Animals and paste them into their own shadows.
👉 Fine Motor Activity #6 : Picture Matching
Although this might look a very simple activity, this is actually the kids own daily activity – which is to find the matching socks or the matching pair of shoes.
In this set, kids need to cut all the Arctic Animals and find-and-paste them to their matching pairs.
👉 Fine Motor Activity #7 : Shape Matching
This activity works like a shape sorter.
Kids need to cut all the shapes and fit-and-paste it into the matching Arctic Animals.
It’s easy because the shapes created for each Arctic Animals are different.
☑️Fine Motor Activity Section #4 : Sorting
In preschool daily life, sorting would mean clean up your room and your toys.
They would learn which toys belong to which group, which type of cloth belongs to which drawer.
For instance their shirts belongs to the top drawers while their pants need to be put at the middle drawers.
In this Arctic Animals pack, we are learning to do sorting according to 3 types of things :
- Sort by color
- Sort by type
- Sort by size
👉 Fine Motor Activity #8 : Sort by Color
Since Arctic Animals doesn’t have much colors, we would sort them according to only 2 groups.
In this activity, kids need to identify which Arctic Animals has black and white colors, and which has only white colors.
And because this pack is created for preschoolers who are not reading yet, I made the sorting boxes to be in the corresponding colors so that kids can sort independently.
👉 Fine Motor Activity #9 : Sort by Type
We are going to sort the Arctic Animals according to which one is fish and which one is not-a-fish.
Although Killer Whale (orca) is categorized as mammals, it is simpler for preschoolers to identify them as a fish group because they live in the ocean.
👉 Fine Motor Activity #10 : Sort by Size
By preschool age, usually most kids would have known how to compare big and small things.
Well, they would usually ask for bigger things right? Such as bigger ice-cream, bigger teddy bears.
My kids always refer to adult as big people, while kids are small people.
This activity helps them to learn the word Big and Small.
☑️Fine Motor Activity Section #5 : Pattern
Learning about pattern is one of the essential skills for math and of course real life.
But learning pattern does not need to be boring.
In this pack, we are going to do the most basic pattern activity, which is the ABAB pattern.
The first activity is about copying the pattern.
Ability to copy pattern is so important for kids because from here they would know what makes a pattern.
The second activity is about completing the pattern.
Arctic Animals Pack Part #2: Math
There are 2 activities in this part.
👉 Math Activity #1 : Number Matching
For activity #12, we have the number matching activity. This is perfect for number recognition activity.
Kids need to identify the number on the Arctic Animals box.
Then find the matching numbers on the ice landscape.
Paste the matching Arctic Animals on the ice landscape.
👉 Math Activity #2 : Greater Than, Lesser Than
Activity #13 would look a bit advance, but worry not! Your 4 years old can do it!
This Greater Than, Lesser Than activity is about comparing quantity.
Well, kids always compare things in their daily life right? Whether who has the most cookies, or the most candies.
This activity is just an extension to their comparing skills.
We would introduce the inequality gator which in later time would ease them to learn about the actual inequality symbols.
For this part, I would first ask my kids to compare, which group has the most penguins?
I didn’t ask them to count. But you can do so if you wish to.
At one glance, they would know which ice landscape has more penguins or less penguins.
Then I would ask them to place the corresponding inequality gators.
The tips is, tell them the gators mouth would only open to eat the group with most penguins.
So they would know which gator to put.
There might be a time when they choose the wrong gators, but place its open mouth at the right position. The gator would look upside down.
Let them be, because technically, it shows that they already get the concept!
Arctic Animals Pack Part #3: Literacy
The final activity in this packet is ABC Matching.
Since this pack is created with 3-4 years old in mind, I’m doing the activity to be matching lowercase letters to lowercase letters.
This is especially for preschool who just begin to learn about their alphabet letter.
Kids need to cut all those Arctic Animals with letters, and find-and-paste its matching letters on the winter landscape.
Ready for Arctic Animals pack fun?
Get Your Pack
Snag your Arctic Animals Pack at our Teachers Pay Teachers store.
Have fun!
