Animals in Winter Unit Study

Did you know that wood frogs are hibernators who freeze in the winter and thaw in the spring? Their hearts even stop beating to survive the winter! This is just one of the many fascinating facts we learned in our most recent unit study about Animals in Winter.

Unit studies have served our family well, and they are useful for in-depth learning about everything from nature topics to literature studies. We’ve done both been mini units and elaborate units, and there are multiple ways to do a unit study.

Common components of our unit studies:

• Books
• Informational printables
• Hands-on learning (sensory bins, handicrafts, cooking, etc.)
• Art projects
• Lapbooks
• Poetry
• Activities related to other subjects
• Field Trips

This year my youngest son is in first grade, and while he has a science curriculum, the main way I’m covering science with him is through nature studies. I did the same thing with oldest son when he was younger. Nature studies are a type of unit study and I like them because they’re interactive, playful, connected to multiple subjects, and allow me to use my creativity in the planning process. They usually require a bit more upfront preparation, which is why some years we haven’t done as many, but I’ve found that they excite my kids about learning and are worth the effort to put together.

Since we are in the season of winter, I decided to do a unit about Animals in Winter. While I put together this study with my younger son in mind, unit studies can work for all ages and can be done family style, but sometimes that doesn’t work for us since my sons have a big age gap. So while most of the activities I’m sharing in this post would work well through the elementary years, my oldest son also enjoyed listening to some of the informational parts and he joined in a few activities.

On a side note, I’ve shared before that even though my kids have a six year age gap, I try to bring them together for some activities because one of the reasons we choose to homeschool is to spend time together as a family. For anyone who many have an age gap scenario like ours, be encouraged that there are ways to make it work!

Most of the unit studies we’ve done are separate from our core curriculum or they relate to something in our core curriculum that I choose to extend. Unit studies are like baking a cake. As I’m planning our studies, I gather several “ingredients” and “combine them together” to make “a cake” (the unit study).

So, here are the ingredients I gathered and combined together to create this unit study.

Printables From Small Shops

There are many wonderful small shops (often fellow homeschoolers) that sell printables for a reasonable cost and can be printed from the connivence of home. For this unit, I found a few resources on Etsy.

1. Animals in Winter study by Nimble Nests (full of beautiful posters, lots of great information, and activities)
2. Animals in Winter study by The Bloom Mom (contains flashcards, three-part cards, winter Bingo, sorting mats, and other activities)

I arranged some of these printables into a book with my binding machine, and I read from it during our morning time.

For our study, we focused on three groups of animals in winter: animals that hibernate, animals that adapt, and animals that migrate–and these materials were a good resource for learning about these different groups. It is amazing to study how God designed each creature down to the tiniest details, giving it the abilities it needs to survive through the changing seasons. This is why science has been a highlight of our homeschool, because it points to our amazing Creator!

Books

Books are probably the number one staple of our unit studies. Our at-home library has flourished over the years, but I also regularly check out books from our local library. The simplest way I’ve found to do this is to put books on hold ahead of time and then pick them all up at once.

We’ve studied animals in winter in the past, but this time we had more resources that enriched our learning, including a large stack of picture books. I was surprised by how many books I was able to find for this study.

Below are some of the books we read for this unit, a few of which we own and many of which were from the library.

Animals in winter books:

• Animals in Winter by Henrietta Bancroft & Richard G. Van Gelder
• Hiders Seekers, Finders Keepers: How Animals Adapt in Winter by Jessica Kulejian
• Hibernation Station by Michelle Meadows
• Hedgehog’s Home for Winter by Elena Ulyeva
• Frozen Wild by: How Animals Survive in the Coldest Places on Earth by Jim Arnosky
• The Mitten by Jan Brett
• Snowy Nap by Jan Brett
• Squirrel’s Sweater by Laura Renauld
• A Cozy Winter Day by Eliza Wheeler
• The Winter Bird by Kate Banks
• Sleep Tight, Little Bear by Britta Teckentrup
• Winter Dance by Marion Dane Bauer
• Twelve Days of Winter: A Winter Celebration by Sherri Maret
• Winter is Here by Kevin Henkes
• Two Wool Gloves by Bo Jin
• The Valentine’s Bears by Jan Brett (I actually keep this one for Valentine’s week, but it reinforces the concept of hibernation and would work well for this unit)
• The Story of Snow by Mark Cassino and Jon Nelson (not about animals but a good resource for winter)

Crafts

There are numerous creative crafts that would pair nicely with this unit, but we only got around to one. Since we learned a lot about hibernation, my son made a bear cave with a few simple supplies. He used construction paper, cotton balls, cutips with paint to make the snowballs, and star stickers to create a bear cave scene.

Sensory Activities

We did two different sensory activities, and in all transparency, one of them was actually a flop. Oh well!

#1: If you know me, you know that I’ve enjoyed putting together sensory bins for my boys over the years. This time I decided to try something new by freezing water beads, because I came across the idea as I was planning our unit. Water beads as a sensory bin filler have always been a hit around our home (even though they’re actually not my favorite because they get slimy and bounce easily out the bin and onto the floor!).

Since we were talking about winter, I thought a frozen water beads sensory bin would be a fitting activity. Visually, they looked really pretty and my son did enjoy thawing them with warm water. However, I hoped they would thaw to their original water bead state and then he could play with them. Well…since water expands as it freezes, the thawed water beads became mushy and broke apart once squished, making them no longer usable.

Except…since I have boys and they like to deconstruct things…both my boys actually enjoyed squishing them up into tiny pieces! So maybe it wasn’t totally a flop, but the cleanup wasn’t fun for me, and needless to say we won’t be doing frozen water beads again in the future.

Instead, I recommend using some pretty winter colored water beads and keeping them normal if you want to do this sensory bin. Add in a couple ice cubes to the mix or do a snow sensory bin if you want to bring in more winter touches.

#2: I also made a batch of winter play dough and this one was a success. I made a basic play dough recipe and added in some white glitter. Normally, I don’t like glitter, but it blends right in and you don’t feel it.

I gave my son some animals and play dough tools and let him use his imagination.

Hibernation Diorama

Dioramas are fun way to visually showcase a unit of study. My son is a chipmunk lover, and I knew he would especially delight in creating a chipmunk burrow as a part of his diorama. This was also a great way to use up some of our overflowing recycling materials.

I collected materials ahead of time including, boxes, paper stuffing, and toilet paper rolls. We already had several animal figures, logs, artificial leaves, and nuts so I didn’t need to buy anything. My son painted a few things a day ahead and then the next day we assembled his diorama. We did this at the end of our unit after we had thoroughly discussed hibernation over a period of three weeks.

Dioramas are a hand-ons way to demonstrate understanding of concepts and they make a special keepsake for years to come.

Other

On Wednesdays we do poetry teatime and one week we played Winter Animals Bingo, which was included in the unit study by The Bloom Mom mentioned above. We also read a few poems about animals.

And while we haven’t been taking many nature walks lately, we have some critters like squirrels and bunnies in our backyard, so we observe their behavior year round.

We all learned some new things as we discussed how animals hibernate, adapt, and migrate during the winter. It’s always interesting to discover more about God’s creation, and unit studies are a wonderful way to do just that.

Do you enjoy unit studies in your homeschool? I’d love to hear some of your favorites in the comments!

Rejoicing in Hope,

Hannah