I was having a difficult time finding a quick project based on Antarctica. After my searching, I came up with this easy-to-make painting.

We taped 9″x12″ watercolor paper to my art board.

Next, I told Farm Kid1 to lightly draw the horizon line about a third of the way up from the bottom. Then pencil in icebergs/glaciers. I also asked him to add one in the water. He drew two.

My bright idea was to have Farm Kid1 use oil pastels as a resist. Well, the first problem with that was I couldn’t find a white oil pastel. So he used a gray oil pastel & white crayon over the top. FYI: this part didn’t work well.

Then we mixed purple & white poster paint with a bit of water & Farm Kid1 spread that on the paper. I reminded him to go from one edge of the paper all the way to the other in one even stroke.

Then he sprinkled kosher salt in the wet paint.

We mixed the blue paint the same way. I wasn’t as concerned about the even strokes on this. While the paint was still wet he pressed a small piece of plastic wrap in the water section.

The next morning the paint was dry so we brushed off the salt & pulled off the plastic wrap.

Unfortunately the resist technique didn’t work well.

And the salt didn’t make a huge impact on the light color. It still added a bit of texture to the sky, though.

I love how the water turned out using the plastic wrap.

Since the resist didn’t work well, Farm Kid1 painted over his glaciers/icebergs.

Then he dipped his thumb and fingers in the white paint to make little penguin bodies.

Oh ya, and I mixed up a little blue paint so he could put a thin line in front of the icebergs in the water to give them a little more depth

Using black, orange & blue sharpies, Farm Kid1 added details to the penguins. I love it!

The last step is to pull off the tape & display the piece of art proudly.

There are many steps to this painting. But, they are all easy steps. The best part is that Farm Kid1 is very proud of his painting.

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Oh no. Poor Antarctica has virtually nothing in its box. This is a box in progress.

This really is it so far. A few papers in the blue folder on possible art projects, maps, etc. Even the animal envelope has only one flashcard in it.

Our Continent Boxes:
Africa
Antarctica
Asia
Australia
Europe
North America
South America

To learn more about our continent boxes click here.

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From the Amazon Rainforest we traveled south to the ice cap of Antarctica on our trip around the world.

Google defines an ice cap as:

a covering of ice over a large area, especially on the polar region of a planet.

School Room

We didn’t have many Antarctic things laying around the house. But, we did find a penguin puppet & a few books to add to our geography center this week.

Biome pocket chart with ice cap info

Farm Kid1 took quite an interest in leopard seal’s this week. So that’s what he chose to do his short animal report on. I made up this mini-book just to give him another option for his reports. I like the small size so that it can be added to his animal notebook without taking up the entire page.

Left: I know it actually doesn’t snow much in Antarctica, but this stamp is the best I could come up with.

Right: Front of Farm Kid1’s postcard from Antarctica

This is our method for measuring distance from one place to another. One inch on our globe measure 660 miles. From the Amazon rainforest to Antarctica was about 9 inches or 5,940 miles.

Just because I already had this put together & it is penguin themed, I had Farm Kid1 do this antonym activity. This file folder activity is from an Evan Moore Literacy Centers book.

Other

Antarctica continent box
Penguin Painting

We didn’t make it on an Antarctic themed field trip. But, we did watch 3 Antarctic movies:
March of the Penguins
This documentary didn’t have near as much action as the shows my kids are used to watching, but they still enjoyed it very much. Farm Kid1 even seemed to have learned a few things.

Encounters at the End of the World
I had high hopes for this one. I thought it would be so cool to see how the researches live day to day. Although, Farm Kid1 & I both did learn quite a bit, the show itself was kind of boring. My two youngest didn’t even stick around to watch half of it. Maybe it was that the guy narrating didn’t have much drama in his voice.

Planet Earth: Ice Worlds
My kids love the Planet Earth shows. This one discusses both the North & South Poles.

Links to our Continents & Biomes:
North America – Temperate Rainforest
South America – Tropical Rainforest
Antarctica – Ice Cap
Africa – Sahara Desert
Australia – Coral Reef
Asia – Tundra
Europe – Deciduous Forest

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