Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

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Hands-On Activities

The Inuit & Arctic Circle Hands-On Activities

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I thought we were going to skate passed the icky sick season this year because we were doing so good, but it seems like we got a touch of it. Not anything though near like my poor mom. She ended up in the hospital and so as life happens, that threw off our scheduling.

The Inuit & Arctic Circle Hands-On Activities

But I happily make my chicken pot pies anytime my mom requests them if it makes her feel better. Since she is still pretty sick and I am driving back/forth out of town helping my dad to take care of her, I had to shorten this unit study a tad bit.  I wanted to share a few more hands-on ideas that I had kept and saved because we can always come back to this unit. Too, if you are still moving ahead with it, hopefully these ideas can help you.

Me? I am getting spring fever. I have been itching to get my hands on my Home Management Binder as it needs some spring updating and the kids are excited about starting on our ancient civilization unit for this next month.

Let me share these hands-on ideas I have though for this unit in case you can use them.

Look at these beautiful, simple, fun and free {did you get all of that} crafts from LearnCreateLove.

(Pic Att. LearnCreateLove)

Click here for Printable Albatross from LearnCreateLove

(Pic Att. LearnCreateLove)

Click here for Printable Polar Bear Craft from LearnCreateLove.Click on the Winter Crafts for some more easy ideas and printables.

Also, check out this next site called Polar Husky that has free movies, pictures and sound clips of the Arctic. It looks like some of the movies they took down, but there is still so much on the site. To hear the voices of the Inuit and look at their natural surroundings makes you feel like you are there.

This next site, the Donna Ward site has information on it about how to build a game played by the children of the Inuit called Iyaga. The site says: A hollow piece of bone is attached to another thin bone by a sinew cord. The thin bone is held in the hand and the hollow bone is tossed in the air. The player must catch the hollow bone on the thin bone. Click here to go there and make this game.

This next site, Beyond Penguins is so comprehensive it is hard to mention all that is on it.

But here is a snippet above so you can see you will be kept happily clicking away on resources for any topic you want to delve into deeper. Click here to go there and be sure you have lots of time when you visit.

This next free download is a fine arts lesson on how to draw a reindeer and how to show the sky in your drawing depict the aurora shift. Click here to download.

This next site on Sea World has the fun zone. It has games, mazes and puzzles. A really helpful site. Click here to go there.

This printable makes a great minibook for your lapbook or notebooking page.  Click here to download this free Animals of the Arctic Tundra wheel.

{Pic attribution: Royal Baloo}

And because we need to cover all ages when studying this unit, grab this free sweet collection from Royal Baloo for the little folks. Click here to go there and download Arctic Animals for Toddler, PreK and Kindergarten.

Also coming next is my free Inuit and Arctic lapbook.

Hugs and love ya,

Arctic Unit Free Guides & Resources

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I was trying to put off this unit study on the Arctic Circle and the Inuit until we at least got our annual 2 days of winter here in Texas. We wanted to get in a winter sort of mood but like I mentioned last week it has been so spring like here, it has been hard to do that. But anyway, we are going forward because we are really excited about starting this unit study. Well at least Tiny and I are but not so sure about my older boys though. They are killing me I am telling you by staying on their topic of choice, the FBI.

Also, go here to the finished Unit Study Arctic and Inuit Lapbook.

When I start a unit study, I like to start off listing or picturing a lot of my resources. That way if you decide to trail along you can. Here are some of the books and magazines I have in my home library that I will be using. Some I have had for a while, others I collected prior to starting because I had an idea of what we wanted to study for this year.  Recently, I added in the collection of Julie of the Wolves. I didn’t have the collection but Kelley mentioned it and I bought it because unlike my older two boys Tiny has an interest in reading it. One book that is pictured above and is a keepsake is The Book of Indians by Holling C. Holling written in the 1930’s.  Beautifully written with rich language as is the style of all of his books, this book explains the different types of Native Americans: northeast woods, plains, desert and northwest coastal. Though he still uses the word Indian instead of Native American, the stories and sketches are still just worth poring over. So without even hitting the library which I don’t like to have to do all the time, I have enough resources in my home to start this unit.

Am I the only that doesn’t like having to go the library every time? True, it may get expensive but I look at my reference books like my curricula instead of always choosing laid out curricula.

Then the next step in starting my unit is to locate resources that are not just free but that are some better choices. This unit is rich with geography and animal and plant life. But there are other topics too that can be included for the older kids.

Like this lesson plan above that is for grades 5-8. It has a template for snow goggles and talks about limiting sunlight.

Click here to download the free 29 page guide.

This next download which includes the two pictures above gives the background of the Arctic region along with case studies on the caribou and the Arctic Tern.

Click here to download the 15 pdf.

This next guide or I should say guides talk about the Arctic animals listed above. There are two guides or grade levels on this teacher’s guide from Seaworld. These guides are real informative along with having picture cards of the various animals to cut out. Having these guides makes learning this unit easy because a lot of the work is already done.

Click here to download Arctic Animals 4th-8th and here to download Arctic Animals K – 3.

I also see some vocabulary words emerging here. Look at both of these teacher’s guides on the Arctic Animals because they include vocabulary for each level. Each person’s list will look different depending on what you think your children need to focus on. Here are some of mine I am brainstorming for my youngest.

Arctic Region. (You know a lot of kids, mine too when they were young and we were going over continents, got this mixed up thinking it was a continent instead of a region encompassing several countries). Also, we will focus on: tundra, Inuit, kayak, permafrost, lichen, diapause, scrimshaw and blubber.

I think too this unit just screams a lapbook, don’t you think? Yep, lapbook coming this month too on this newest unit. I have lots more links and hands-on ideas to share with you as we plod along on this unit.

Next post, I will share our first hands-on project for this new unit.

I love this winter quote today:

“I like these cold, gray winter days.  Days like these let you savor a bad mood.”

  ~Bill Watterson~

You may also like to read:

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

How to Make Celtic Cakes -Recipe for Hands-on History

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Your kids will love making this Celtic cakes recipe. 

Celtic Cakes Recipe

How to Make Celtic Cakes -Recipe for Hands-on History

I finally started doing some spring cleaning around the house. I seem to have a longer list this year so I have a hodgepodge of things going on around here.

So we will be taking our time studying the Ancient Civilization Unit because we have been doing spring cleaning and have been spending time outside.

There are so many ancient civilizations to focus on but in going over this with Tiny and Mr. Awesome again, we have been focusing on Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt and Greece so far.

Even though we have covered this before, the older the kids get the more they appreciate about each civilization.

Also we didn’t really talk too much about the Celts when they were younger other than to appreciate their illuminated manuscripts because there is a lot of paganism associated with the culture.

To be completely objective though, the more in depth you study any civilization you realize that a lot of them have some pagan roots associated somewhere.

Don’t forget to check out Home School In the Woods for hands-on project.

You have to sort through and pick the things like art or influences on our language that made changes, good or otherwise and discard the other things about their culture that focused on pagan things.

We decided to make something in the kitchen this time to start off our study.

The boys looked up some recipes of what they wanted to make or should I say something they thought would taste good.

I love the way they sneak in baking something good to eat and call it history.

I could tell when Mr. Awesome showed me the recipe on Celtic cakes that it might taste a little flat and uninspiring but he was insistent on making them because he loves oatmeal cookies.

I think he thought he was making something similar. We have much drama in our house when the boys cook. Every step in the process has to be “attacked”.

How to Make Celtic Cakes -Recipe for Hands-on History

Download recipe card here.

The Celtic cakes were much more like a flat bread that is well, flat.

The boys put some sugar and cinnamon in them too. A little sugar never hurts and after they were baked, they ate them with honey. T

he Celts believed in staying fit; if they ate this, they would.

The Celt influenced European art and history even though they are probably less talked about in ancient civilizations.

We like to read/talk about some civilizations that are not so well known. At the height of their civilization they stretched from the  Atlantic to Asia Minor, from northern Europe to the Mediterranean Coast.

The Celts were a collection of tribes instead of just one group. The World Book says: The Celts expressed their artistic genius in such arts and crafts as metal work, sculpture, and ceramic pottery. Celtic artists excelled in decorating objects. They used beautiful combinations of curved lines and spirals that were based on natural forms such as plants, animals and birds. Irish monks used these patterns to illuminate (decorate) manuscripts.

I think what we found fascinating in reading about them was that not only did they have an imposing physique because of what they ate but they would mix chalk and water and add to their hair to make them ferocious looking.  It was like plaster-cast hair.

How to Make Celtic Cakes -Recipe for Hands-on History

Here is a statute of a dying Gaul where the warrior’s hair was replicated to look like that.

Interesting enough Hannibal enlisted their help because their appearance  with long mustache and spiked hair struck fear into their enemies. I think we may have to include a minibook about them in our unit.

Today though I have included our minibook on Ancient Mesopotamia. I want to round out our study a little more about that area.

Download Mesopotamia minibook here.

You know how my brain works. I tend to think in terms of “projects” when we do our unit studies.

So I think instead of throwing the lapbook to you all at one time, I will back up and share a minibook or two as we do them or study about them. That way it gives you a chance to work on it if you are doing this unit too.

I know I feel comfortable doing a jillion things at once but I know that can get crazy overwhelming if you are trying to follow along as I do them.

Plus the fact that I just love sharing with you, slowing down the pace a bit allows time for studying this topic over a longer time. There is so much to cover about ancient civilizations.

How to Make Celtic Cakes -Recipe for Hands-on History

. Be sure to download the Celtic Cakes Recipe and new minibook on Ancient Mesopotamia as we move along through spring in our study of Ancient Civilizations.

Are you working on some fun hands-on history projects?

Also, read some more fun hands-on history below:

Hugs and you know I love ya,