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.
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
2 Toy polar bear figures
Laminator to make the activity reusable for this and other activities
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.
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.
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.
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?”
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.
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.
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.
More Polar Animal Themed Activities
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
My preschooler is going to love this. We have been working on sharing a lot with him and he is facinated with all things numbers!
My son has been so into Polar Bears since Christmas. What a fun way to use something he love to teach him more.