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Arctic Crafts




Color and Learn Worksheets

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Recently we’ve added a handful of Color and Learn worksheets to our sister site Preschool Mom, and I wanted to take a minute to show you why they are so popular with our visitors.

Each collection includes a variety of different animals/bugs alongside some amazing and fun facts for children to learn.  Some pages include extra activities like footprint identification or beginning writing skills, but mostly they are designed to be no-prep, easy to implement resources you can use in your classroom.  In fact, it might be fun for children to create their own fact book featuring each of the different animals.

FarmAnimalColoringHeader

Color and Learn Farm Animals

A set of seven different color and learn pages, each featuring a baby farm animal, foot prints, and facts for children to learn. These are great for small bits of learning and you can read the facts as your child colors in their page.

 

ArcticAnimalHeader

Color and Learn Arctic Animals

Children love to learn about animals, especially animals that can survive in the cold harsh arctic tundra!  These free arctic animal printables are just right for your winter preschool lessons. Children can learn all about the amazing creatures that thrive in the worlds arctic deserts.  This is a great time to tie in some animal science, habitats & biomes as well as seasonal migration patterns and hibernation books.

 

BugsColorHeader2

Color and Learn Insects and Bugs

Children love to learn about all the amazing creepy crawlies in the world around them.  Below we’ve created ten different color and learn activity pages filled with fun facts, simple coloring and a space for children to write their own thoughts about the creature.  These are fantastic for science units, children can bind them together to create their own booklet to share with friends and family.

Northern Lights, Igloos, & Arctic Art for Kids

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With Winter upon us I’ve been busing designing a few Arctic Art Projects for Kids!  Today I’ve got two more photo tutorials to add to our collection.

Igloo7

Northern Lights Arctic Art Project for Kids

This is a dreamy way to create a beautiful sunset or Northern lights backdrop for your winter scenes.

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Patterned Polar Bear Art Project for Kids

This art project is simple yet stunning and each project turns out so differently.  Children work on warm and cool color blocking as well as patterns and design work.

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Find more Arctic Art Projects Here

Patterned Polar Bear Art Project


PatternTitleThis is a dreamy way to create a beautiful Arctic sunset or Northern lights backdrop for your winter scenes.  

Materials:

 

 


ArcticBear

Ice Bear: The Arctic World of Polar Bears

This simple yet evocative book explores the polar bear s Arctic home and life cycle. Playful cubs, hungry boars, and intimidating sows Kazlowski’s photographs capture this fascinating species in all its beautiful and fearsome glory. More than 100 full-color images reveal the polar bear s world, as well as the entire Arctic landscape: rugged ice floes, magical aurora borealis, walruses, seals, Arctic foxes and rabbits, beluga whales, and a variety of birds including the snowy owl. Kazlowski also captures the Inuit people and their culture in which the polar bear plays a significant part.

 

Step 1

Print your polar bear template as a guide. The template includes grey lines separating each shape.

Step 2

Choose cool colors (blues, greens, purples) to color in the shapes of your polar bear.

Step 3

You want a good variety of colors and try not to have the same colors touching eachother.

Step 4

Choose warm colors (reds, oranges, and yellows) and start filling in the shapes of the background.

Step 5

Color in every shape leaving no white space. Make sure you pressed hard enough with your oil pastels to ge a thick layer of color on your paper.

Step 6

You can stop here and frame on black construction paper if you like

Step 7

Or you might want to add in some patterns. Oil pastel can be scratched away to reveal a lighter hue of the same color. This is a great way to add texture and patterns to your polar bear.

Step 8

You can even add in things you might see in an Arctic landscape; iceburgs, winter trees, a full moon, inukshuk, etc....

Northern Lights Igloo Art Project

IglooTitleThis is a dreamy way to create a beautiful Arctic sunset or Northern lights backdrop for your winter scenes.  

Materials:


ArcticLightsAurora: A Tale of the Northern Lights

Alaskan storyteller and artist Mindy Dwyer has created a magical story of a young girl whose seeking and dreams lead her to a great discovery. The bright, luminous illustrations that accompany the story magically portray this tale of the origin of the Aurora Borealis, the glorious northern lights.

Step 1

Cut out your igloo template a glue lightly to your art paper.

Step 2

Cut your bleeding tissue paper into thin strips.

Step 3

Using water and a paintbrush, begin to wet your paper and lay down strips of tissue paper. Wet the top of the tissue paper as well.

Step 4

Layer your tissue paper to blend the colors. Continue to wet the paper as you go.

Step 5

Fill your paper with tissue paper strips. Allow to dry.

Step 6

When dry, carefully peel back your tissue stips to reveal the color patterns below.

Step 7

Use Watercolor Crayons (or simple watercolor paints) to add some color to your igloo.

Polar Bear Art Projects

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If you’ve been following us on Instagram, you’ve already gotten a glimpse of these new art projects while they were in the works, but today I’ve finished the photo tutorials to show you how to make your own with your children.  These polar bear art projects are stunning and aren’t as difficult as they look.  I would recommend using these with late elementry or early middle school aged children…..but really you can adapt these for children of all ages and abilities.

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Polar Bear Landscape Art Project

Based off the beautiful arctic landscape scenes by Ted Harrison, this project is fun for children of all ages and definitely adds a color pop to your classroom!

 

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Polar Bear Paw Print Art Project

This stunning Arctic craft uses a bear paw print template.  Children use watercolor, ink and oil pastel to create a beautiful winter scene of a polar bear and her cub.

A harbor seal is depicted across the pads of the polar bears feet, foreshadowing the end of this Winter hunt.

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Find more Arctic Art Projects Here

Polar Bear Paw Print Art Project

PawTitleThis stunning Arctic craft uses a bear paw print template.  Children use watercolor, ink and oil pastel to create a beautiful winter scene of a polar bear and her cub.  The second layer shows a seal hiding in it’s den, implying what the polar bear might be hunting for.

Materials:


ArcticBearIce Bear: The Arctic World of Polar Bears

This simple yet evocative book explores the polar bear s Arctic home and life cycle. Playful cubs, hungry boars, and intimidating sows Kazlowski’s photographs capture this fascinating species in all its beautiful and fearsome glory. More than 100 full-color images reveal the polar bear s world, as well as the entire Arctic landscape: rugged ice floes, magical aurora borealis, walruses, seals, Arctic foxes and rabbits, beluga whales, and a variety of birds including the snowy owl. Kazlowski also captures the Inuit people and their culture in which the polar bear plays a significant part.

Step 1

Choose two oil pastels for the claws.and color them about half way up in a triangle shape

Step 2

. Look at a seal online to see the markings. I imagined my seal was hiding out under the snow. Draw a seal pattern in the middle paws. Dots, circles etc

Step 3

Color your seal. I used grey at the top, mustard yellow, white, then peach. A little bit of pink near his face.

Step 4

Using watercolors add a little blue to your background.

Step 5

Choose a variety of different blues, into purples, then light pink near the top.

Step 6

While your watercolor is drying, take a black ink pen and color in the rest of your claws, leaving a small strip of white showing near the middle (This will make your claws pop out!)

Step 7

You can decide to stop here if you like, it's really pretty as it is.

Step 8

But it's absolutely stunning if you take the time to cut out and rearrange your shapes onto black construction paper.

Arctic Art Projects for Kids

These art projects and activities are a wonderful accompaniment to your lessons on the Arctic and polar regions.  You could easily tie this unit in with our Inuit (Eskimo) craft projects to add in cultural studies as well.  While the focus of these art projects is the Arctic, we’ve included penguins and other polar animals as well.  Winter is a great time to learn about these amazing creatures that can survive in the lowest of temperatures.  Migration and Hibernation would also be good subjects to tie in to a thematic unit.

Polar Bear Landscape

Based off the beautiful arctic landscape scenes by Ted Harrison, this project is fun for children of all ages and definitely adds a color pop to your classroom!

View Resource

Arctic Paw Print

This stunning Arctic craft uses a bear paw print template. Children use watercolor, ink and oil pastel to create a beautiful winter scene of a polar bear and her cub.

View Resource

Northern Lights Art Project

This is a dreamy way to create a beautiful sunset or Northern lights backdrop for your winter scenes.

View Resource

Inukshuk Rock Art

A simple way to make inukshuk statues is to glue them to cardboard. Older children might try their hand at balancing them instead. Find a collection of Inuit Art Projects Here.

View Resource

Polar Bear Art Project

This art project is simple yet stunning and each project turns out so differently. Children work on warm and cool color blocking as well as patterns and design work.

View Resource

Love these bear graphics?  Check out Fish Scraps Graphics for more.

Soapstone Sculpture Art Project

SoapstonePinThe Inuit tribes often carved beautiful shapes from soapstone. These shapes represented things they saw and experienced in daily life. There are many beautiful carvings of Arctic creatures as well ashuman forms depicting dailylife in the Arctic.

Materials:

  • Modeling Clay (we used self hardening white and brown)
  • Black Pepper
  • Carving Tools

Suggested Resources for a Unit Study:

InuitSoapstone   inuitthought    igloo2     igloo1

 

Art Project Tutorial:

Step 1

Blend different colors of clay. We are using white and brown.

Step 2

We want the brown parts to just streak up the clay a bit, not to blend into a tan color.

Step 3

Add in some texture. We are using black pepper to get that freckled look to our clay

Step 4

Smoosh, fold and kneed the clay mixing it in

Step 5

Your clay is ready to use! Have older children form it into a block, and use simple tools to carve away at the clay. Younger children can just form the shapes of their clay.

Step 6

Encourage children to make something that depicits life in the Arctic. That could be an animal, a tool, or even an Inuit family.

All Done!

Let your clay harden overnight and display your arctic animals in your classroom.

Sugar Cube Igloo Project

IglooThese igloos are not only fun to build, they are sweet to the taste as well! the time to build a layer and give the igloo time to dry. the exact way to build an igloo, but my children had a blast. Older children can certainly try to use the methods explained in the book, and the video.

Materials:

  • Sugar Cubes(one box = one igloo)
  • Cardboard
  • White Glue
  • White Paint

Suggested Resources for a Unit Study:

igloo2    igloo1    Igloo3   Igloo4

 

Art Project Tutorial:

Step 1

Cover your cardboard with white paint. (If you're feeling extra crafty use Puffy Paint,

Step 2

Pour your sugar cubes into a dish for easy access.

Step 3

Draw out the shape of your igloo. Try to get it a circle, you can use a plate or upside down cup. Don't forget a doorway.

Step 4

Put down a layer of glue along your igloo shape, and begin to build your igloo.

Step 5

When you start your second layer you want to build a little bit inwards so that eventually you're igloo will come together.

Step 6

Continue to build up and in, being careful. If you can stagger the cubes a bit it will be somewhat sturdier.

Step 7

At some point you'll need to let your layers dry. When we got to the forth layer we decided to let it rest for the night.

Step 8

As we added each additional layer, we let it dry overnight, using glue bottles and other household tools as props.

All Done!

When dry you can add to your Arctic scene by filling up the cardboard area. Maybe making an Inuit family, an ice fishing hole, various animals outside....it's up to you!

Sugar Cube Igloo

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We are wrapping up our studies on the Inuit tribes of North America with a fun sugar cube igloo:

igloo crafts

For this project we watched this dated, but informative video on “How to build an igloo” and paired our craft with this fantastic early reader:

Igloo Crafts

A Look Inside an Igloo

The kids had a blast with this project, as we added a layer of cubes every day to allow them time to dry.

eskimo crafts for kids

We also spent some time exploring the fantastic videos on Sila. My children were just fascinated by these, so far they’ve seen the building of an igloo, the hunting of a caribou, and even a church service with a lesson on Moses. I haven’t seen them all so I’d recommend watching them on your own first to decide, as often with Native American culture you can get into spiritual discussions.

eskimo file folder game

This week we also reviewed what we know about Arctic animals with this fun Arctic Animals File Folder Game!

Stay tuned for more Native American Crafts as we move on to the Tlingit tribes!

Soapstone Sculpture

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Yesterday for art we enchanced our plain white clay with an ancient Inuit technique:

soapstone crafts for kids

*snicker

Black Pepper really did add some texture to our clay, and reminded me of the appearance of soapstone:

eskimo crafts homeschool

(I would have put more in, but eyes were starting to water)

inuit crafts for kids

We paired this craft with the book Missuk’s Snow Geese, which is about a little girl who wants to learn from her father, how to carve into soapstone.

My kiddos were a bit to young to do the traditional carving technique (we’ll be picking up bars of soap for this later in the week!) so we just molded our clay into shapes:

inuit crafts kids

This was Bubba’s “Shark”….made me giggle how much it looks like a whale, but if he say’s it’s a shark….it’s a shark!

Inuit Snow Goggles Craft

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Awesome Book

Inuit Inventions

+ Awesome Craft

inuit crafts

= Hours of Pretend Play!

My house is filled with little (blond) Inuit children making “igloos’ from my couch cushions!

Make your own? Here’s the Step By Step with a printable template!

Inuksuk Craft

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Cardboard + Rocks + Glue =

inuksuk craft lesson

Inuksuk!

Wondering what that means? Here’s a video….don’t feel bad for clicking it, I didn’t know either.

If anything you’ll at least learn how to pronounce it.

Here’s a few helpful books with some fantastic photos too:

inuksuk lesson children

inuksuk craft

Going for extra credit? Check it out….an Inuksuk on the 2010 Winter Olympics….

some discussion questions and some helpful links and ideas too!

inuksuk craft

These would look fantastic framed in black don’t you think?

Arctic Watercolor

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We will be lapbooking all of our fun Arctic learning, so this week the kids made some beautiful watercolor artwork, inspired by the wonderful illustrations in this book:

arctic animal crafts

“My Arctic 1,2,3”

We loved this book because a new animal is introduced for each page, and below the pictures children can see how the animals names are written in traditional Inukitut. At the back of the book there is a section where the author discusses his childhood encounters with each animal, while growing up in the Arctic. Bubba especially loved this part of the book, hearing about a young boy who had so many fantastic adventures.

arctic animal crafts

My kiddos picked their favorite animal of the group and used a combination of watercolor, colored pencils, and pastels to complete their drawings.

We cut down the edges of the paintings, and glued them to our lapbooks for cover art. I then helped the children write the name of the animal in Inukitut next to their paintings:

arctic lapbook, eskimo, inuit

If you can’t tell, Sissy(7) did “Killer Whales”, and Bubba(4) did “Arctic Char” (which are fish)

I think they turned out beautiful and they are super excited to fill them up with everything they are learning!

Here is a link to a tutorial with discussion questions for using this craft in your classroom.

Stay tuned for more Arctic Fun!

Puffy Polar Bear

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We’re starting up our Homechool year learning about the Inuit tribes of North America!

My kiddos have been so excited to learn about the Eskimos, and all the amazing creatures of the arctic.

inuit crafts

We’re using Evan-Moor History Pockets as a basic guide for our studies on Native Americans

inuit crafts, eskimo, arctic animals

As well as Draw, Write, Now Book 4 (Animals of the Arctic)

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And of course a slew of library books (Click Here for our picks)

We’ve already kicked off our year of learning so we’ve got some great projects to share with you!

Starting off with these fun Puffy Polar Bears:

polar bear craft

We’ve even included a recipe for making your own Puffy Paint, and Texture Paint here!!

Very Simple, but quite beautiful results!

Stay tuned for more Arctic Fun!!!

eskimo file folder game

(Psst….You did see our adorable Eskimo File Folder Game didn’t you?)