Sugar Cube Igloos

What study of the Arctic would be complete without making an igloo? We made ours out of sugar cubes and had quite a time with this project. Who knew it was so hard to find sugar cubes? Granted, we don't use them everyday, but we had to visit five grocery stores to be able to locate them. Then, once we found them we discovered making an igloo is harder than it looks.

First, the kids didn't think they really needed anything to help hold it together - after all, real igloos are only made with blocks of snow. That didn't work so well. Then, we tried using some white frosting as glue to help hold them together. Somehow our completed igloos turned out looking more like the pyramids of the Amazon instead of igloos, but it was a fun project.

After many attempts, Doodle Bug decided to make a home for some penguins instead, using more of our polar stickers to decorate the inside of her ice house. I like her creativity (c:

Northern Lights Chalk Art

As part of our Arctic study we learned about the Northern Lights, or the Aurora Boralis. We learned that the lights are caused by charged particles colliding in the earth's atmosphere. Living in Oklahoma we are not likely to see them for ourselves, so we used the wonders of google to search out images of the lights. Then, the kids made their own Northern Lights pictures using dark construction paper, sidewalk chalk (though I think pastels would work better for this project if we had them on hand), some polar foam stickers and cotton balls for the snow. I love making mixed media art with the kids, I think it makes for much more interesting finished projects. I had the kids research what colors were actually in the Northern Lights and find out what caused the different colors. Then they used their chalk to add some color streaks to the sky and a tissue to blend the colors together to give it a more natural look. After they were all done, we sprayed on some hairspray to help set the colors and keep them from smudging further.