In January, our students had a study of Eskimos and animals of the Arctic and Antarctic Regions. We began our unit by reading "The True Book of Little Eskimos" by Donald McKillop Copeland. This book is about the lives of a little Eskimo boy and girl. We learned how Eskimos build their igloos, about the games Eskimo children make out of whale bones, and we really enjoyed making our own igloos out of playdough! We covered half of a styrofoam ball with playdough and used toothpicks to make imprints of blocks of snow. A small cube-shaped door was made out of playdough and attached to the rest of the igloo.
	We made an Eskimo village by draping quilt batting over different size boxes and putting our igloos on these boxes. To end our unit, we studied about the penguin. We learned there are 17 kinds of penguins, and they all live in regions below the equator. We learned what penguins eat, how they hatch their eggs, and how blubber protects them from the extreme cold weather.
									We made penguins out of playdough, painted them like the different penguins we studied, and placed them in our igloo village. The last day of our unit, we celebrated by having Penguin Day! We made penguin costumes to wear, and we ate penguin cake and gummy fish.