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Polar Bear Sharing Activity for Early Years

This week we’re kicking off the year with some Tundra themed activities and we’re focusing on Polar Bears and a hands-on sharing activity. I’ve got a free printable that you can download from our store which 20 polar bear cubs on it ideal for us with this activity however if you have a large number of toy polar bears they could be used as well.

Hands-on Math activity for early years with the theme of Tundra or Polar Animals, sharing and halving polar bear cubs

Whether you homeschool or you children are in school helping them learn at home is easy to do and set up – on a regular basis we will be sharing ideas and activities that you can do with your child to help them. These are ideas that are hands-on and support learning, they are also ideal to use in a classroom and many are from my own teaching experience or passed onto me from my parents adapted to suit different themes and ideas. On a Wednesday you will find ideas that work with younger children and you can find all of the ideas for this age range here many of them are themed and you can find supporting ideas at the bottom of each post from the #TeachECE team.

Learning Objectives for Polar Bear Sharing Activity

  • Can share objects between 2 groups
  • Can count 1 to 1 correspondence
  • Can total two groups

Materials Needed for your Polar Bear Sharing Activity

We have included affiliate links to products we used and recommend for this activity. If you purchase through the link we may earn a small commission.

Printable Polar Bears from our Store

Printer – We use an HP Envy with Insta-Ink in the Rainy Day House

White Cardstock to print on

2 pieces of blue cardstock

Glue

2 Toy polar bear figures
Laminator to make the activity reusable for this and other activities

Scissors

Preparation for making your Polar Bear Sharing Activity

Print out the Polar Bears and cut up. Laminate them to make them more hardy to use with Preschoolers and Kindergarten aged children and cut up into individual polar bear cubs.

Cut out 2 random shapes from the white paper and glue to the blue cardstock. Laminate this to form your icebergs for the Polar Bears to rest on.

How to Play your Polar Bear Sharing Game

Start by placing the polar bears onto each of the icebergs and then sort out an EVEN number of cubs to share between the polar bears.

Hands-on Math activity for early years with the theme of Tundra or Polar Animals, sharing and halving polar bear cubs

I started off by letting my 4 year old (in Kinder in the UK) share them herself and she randomly placed the cubs onto each of the icebergs with the mother polar bears.

Once she had placed them time to count how many were on each of the icebergs.

Hands-on Math activity for early years with the theme of Tundra or Polar Animals, sharing and halving polar bear cubs

A good question to ask at this point is “Do they have the same or a different number of cubs?”

It turned out randomly sharing them meant a different number of cubs so we spent a little time talking about how to share equally (get the same) on each iceberg.

Hands-on Math activity for early years with the theme of Tundra or Polar Animals, sharing and halving polar bear cubs

Once we had worked on either using the 1 for you and 1 for you method or picking up a cub in each hand and then placing them onto different icebergs we then repeated the process with another EVEN number of cubs.

Counted the total on each iceberg and then the question “How many are there altogether in total on the two icebergs?”

Hands-on Math activity for early years with the theme of Tundra or Polar Animals, sharing and halving polar bear cubs

She then counted them all out together.

Once we had repeated this I then counted out an ODD number of cubs to share between the icebergs.

She started off well and then was left with 1 in her hand which she added to the second of the 1 for you, 1 for you sequence.

Hands-on Math activity for early years with the theme of Tundra or Polar Animals, sharing and halving polar bear cubs

I left her to count them out and suddenly she was piling them in together telling me she had gone wrong and had to share them equally again which she did and came up with the same answer.

Hands-on Math activity for early years with the theme of Tundra or Polar Animals, sharing and halving polar bear cubs

It was a great time to explain that there were two different sorts of numbers EVEN numbers which can be shared equally between 2 and ODD numbers which always have an odd one left out and you would need to split up to share equally between the two – which she was adamant wasn’t a good thing to do with a polar bear cub.

Hands-on Math activity for early years with the theme of Tundra or Polar Animals, sharing and halving polar bear cubs

More Polar Animal Themed Activities

A fun winter or polar-themed game for preschoolers to feed the penguin. Full instructions on making the stand up penguin and the ideas and inspiration for using it to play simple learning games with preschoolers at home or in the classroom.

Feed the Penguin Game

Early elementary science research project investigating food chains in the Polar Ecosystem with FREE printable

Polar Bear Food Chains

Create this Penguin Counting Game with your toddlers and preschoolers to work on number recognition and counting in sequence.

Penguin Counting Game

Hands-on game for supporting the learning of number names with a penguin theme. Including all downloads and instructions for play.

Penguin Number Words Game

Simple to make Penguin themed Place Value Number Game for Primary Kids that works on comparing and ordering 3 digit numbers.

Penguin Place Value Maths Game

Other Tundra Themed Activities from the TeachECE Team

Check out these other ideas for Tundra themed activities from the TeachECE team.

Arctic Animal Sensory Writing Tray by Fun-A-Day

Home-made Books: Tundra by Powerful Mothering

Why Are Polar Bears White? | Animal Adaptations on the Arctic Tundra by Raising Lifelong Learners

Tundra Animal Sharing and Halving – YOU ARE HERE!

Arctic Edition, Mother May I Gross Motor Game by Tiny Tots Adventures

Arctic Animal Matching Games by Life Over C’s

Arctic Animals Preschool Science:  Blubber and Ice Explorations! By The Preschool Toolbox Blog

Science Fun-Learning About the Woolly Bear Caterpillar by Capri + 3

Arctic Preschool Letter Hunt by Learning 2 Walk

Polar Bear Sound Activity by Growing Book by Book

Arctic Animals Writing Prompts by The Educators’ Spin On It

Hands-on Math activity for early years with the theme of Tundra or Polar Animals, sharing and halving polar bear cubs

Author
Cerys Parker

Cerys is a marine biologist, environmental educator, teacher, mum, and home educator from the UK. She loves getting creative, whether it is with simple and easy crafts and ideas, activities to make learning fun, or delicious recipes that you and your kids can cook together you'll find them all shared here on Rainy Day Mum.

7 Comments

  1. Thanks for the printables! This is a great addition to our theme this week.

  2. I’m excited to share this activity with my boys.

  3. What a great math activity. The polar bear cads are super cute!

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