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Arctic Adventure – Classroom Transformation

Since we have been learning about the Arctic, I decided to transform our classroom into an Arctic Adventure today.

Great ideas for transforming your classroom into an Arctic Adventure.I decorated my classroom the night before with some items that I picked up at Dollar Tree and Deans Party Mania, which is basically our version of Party City.

Great ideas for transforming your classroom into an Arctic Adventure. Love the idea of using plastic as ice floes.I covered each of the desks and tables with white tablecloths and then spread plastic, from the paint section, on the floor to represent ice floes.  I also picked up some snowflake confetti and sparkly plastic confetti to sprinkle on the tables.

Great ideas for transforming your classroom into an Arctic Adventure.I attached snowflake décor to my lanterns that I have hanging from my ceiling.

Great ideas for transforming your classroom into an Arctic Adventure.For my door, I taped on a light blue table cloth and decorated it with snowflakes from the party store.  I also found this sparkly door decoration at Dollar Tree.

Great ideas for transforming your classroom into an Arctic Adventure.I hung up a light blue table cloth on our dry erase board and attached this felt icicle decoration along the top.

Love this idea for giving students "melted snow" during an Arctic Adventure classroom transformation.I gave each student a bottle of “melted snow” to have for the day.  You can download the water bottle cover HERE.

Prior to the students coming in, I turned on this Arctic sounds video and projected the picture on my screen.

What did we do during our Arctic Day?

We have been using my Print & Teach Arctic Animals packet all week to learn about animals in the Arctic.  For our morning work, we completed the Arctic Animal Word Search from this packet.

Then, we rotated through four Arctic stations.

1.  Constructing Marshmallow Igloos

These ideas for transforming a classroom into the Arctic are perfect. Students will make an igloo using large marshmallows.I purchased the larger marshmallows for this activity.  The students could work together or on their own to create igloos with the marshmallows.

These ideas for transforming a classroom into the Arctic are perfect. Students will make an igloo using large marshmallows.These ideas for transforming a classroom into the Arctic are perfect. Students will make an igloo using large marshmallows.2.  Snowball Structures

I purchased bags of small marshmallows and toothpicks for students to create snowball structures.

These ideas for transforming a classroom into the Arctic are perfect. Students will make an snowball structures using marshmallows.3.  Q-tip Snowflakes

The students created snowflakes using Q-tips at the third station.

These ideas for transforming a classroom into the Arctic are perfect. Students will make an snowflakes using Q-tips..4.  Snowball Coding

The students completed this Snowball Coding Activity from Teach Outside the Box.

 While the students were working at their stations, I had one student at a time come to me to complete the Blubber Experiment.  I placed vegetable shortening in a large bag.  The student put on a latex glove and placed their hand in the shortening.  Then, they placed their hand in ice water to demonstrate how blubber keeps arctic animals warm.

This blubber experiment is a must on an Arctic Adventure Day.Later on in the day, we had a snowball throwing contest.  I gave each students a cotton ball.  They each took turns throwing the ball and then measuring how far they threw it.

These ideas for transforming your classroom into the Arctic are perfect. I love this idea of having a snowball throwing contest with cotton balls, and then measuring the distance. Check out all of these ideas.Since we have been learning about place value and how to use Base-10 blocks, I incorporated that into our day.  I gave students straws and marshmallows.   These became icicles and snowballs.  The students had to make numbers with their icicles and snowballs just like they would with Base-10 blocks.

These ideas for transforming your classroom into the Arctic are great. I love this idea of using snowballs and icicles (marshmallows and straws) as Base-10 blocks. Check out all of these ideas.These ideas for transforming your classroom into the Arctic are great. I love this idea of using snowballs and icicles (marshmallows and straws) as Base-10 blocks. Check out all of these ideas.We practiced spelling words and math facts with shaving cream (snow) on our desks.

These ideas for transforming your classroom into the Arctic are great. I love this idea of using shaving cream as snow to work on spelling words or math facts. Check out all of these ideas.These ideas for transforming your classroom into the Arctic are great. I love this idea of using shaving cream as snow to work on spelling words or math facts. Check out all of these ideas.We also used passages from my new Winter Edition of Reading on the Move.  The students read the passage, roll the dice, and then complete the “winter themed” movement before reading again.

This Winter Edition of Reading on the Move is a great way to incorporate reading fluency and exercise.These are always a great way to incorporate reading fluency and exercise.   You can check out this packet HERE.

This snow banner freebie from Erica Bohrer was a great activity for the day as well.

I remembered at the last minute that I had this Polar Bear Flip Book from my Flip & Read packets.

These Flip and Read books are a fun way to work on reading fluency and comprehension.

These Flip and Read booklets are a fun way to work on reading comprehension.We had such a fun day.  I am already planning ahead to our next classroom transformation.

Need links to items that we use to learn about the Arctic?

Print and Teach Arctic Animals

Reading on the Move (Winter Edition)

January Nonfiction

Flip & Reads

These ideas for transforming a classroom into an Arctic Adventure are great.

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2 Comments

  1. I loved reading about how you brought the arctic to your classroom! Thank you for sharing all of your ideas!

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