Welcome to our “Amazing Ice Age Animals Week” – an at home camp filled with days of relaxed learning and fun activities all themed to learning about animals that once lived on this Earth! For this day, we learned all about the Wooly Mammoth! Read on to check out a fun filled day of learning, reading, crafts, and activities all on this famous ice age giant!
A TYPICAL DAY
All kids are different and you can definitely vary your day with whatever works for you 🙂 Our relaxed & learning fun day kicks off with an introduction to the day’s theme. Then, we move onto videos and themed activities (reading, writing – or story telling – time, crafts, food crafts/snacks, and games or experiments). Feel free to pick and choose whatever works for you 🙂
INTRO
Arguably the most popular and well known animal from the Ice Age, the wooly mammoth has been featured in many movies, books, and TV shows! So it’s very possible that your little ones already know quite a few facts about these amazing creatures! These sites are great for quick facts or intros.
WHAT TO WATCH
We find that mixing in a short video themed to our day is a great way to add some learning fun! We try to pick informative videos OR mix in a cartoon favorite (where they don’t even realize they’re learning). Below are some of the videos we picked from for the day:
- Woolly Mammoths for Kids | Learn all about this furry animal and its existence during the Ice Ages by Learn Bright (6m)
Otherwise, if you’re wrapping up the day and want to sit down for a longer movie – Sid from Ice Age is actually a Giant Ground Sloth!
FOOD CRAFTS / SNACKS
What’s more fun than taking a break and having a simple snack??? Including the snack in your theme of the day! We find that our kiddos are more than happy to eat the snacks they create especially when they can arrange them into fun shapes and scenes!
For our snack of the day, we stretched a bit… We ended up using animal crackers and created some scenes with the elephants, which were the closest to mammoths we could find 🙂
READING
It’s no secret that reading is an important part of learning, which is why we pick out a handful of books that are fun and filled with some learning tidbits. For our older ones, we have them fill out some worksheets (or let them create some of their own comics) to describe what they read and/or learned! These are a few we picked from for the day:
- How to Wash a Woolly Mammoth: A Picture Book by Michelle Robinson and Kate Hindley
- Woolly Mammoths (Ice Age Animals) by Melissa Higgins.
- National Geographic Kids Prehistoric Mammals by Kathleen Zoehfeld. This one is a good introduction of ice age animals with one page on mammoths.
WRITING & WRITING PROMPTS
Just like reading, writing is a great way to keep kids learning by both encouraging their creativity and thought process as well as helping them practice their motor skills and penmanship.
If you’ve got a little one, have them trace words related to the theme: EXTINCT, ICE AGE, WOOLY MAMMOTH, TUSK
If you’ve got older children, have them write a sentence or two up to a page or two (depending on their age). Encourage them to be creative AND give reasons for why they made certain choices. This was our writing prompt of the day (and we offered up some examples as well) but definitely pick something your kiddo might be interested in writing about!
- If you were an alien from another planet and traveled to Earth during the Ice Age, what would you think would be the purpose of a Wooly Mammoth’s tusks?
- Do you think it would be comfortable having such large tusks as part of your body? Why do you think it works for wooly mammoths but might be uncomfortable for humans?
CREATE & CRAFT
If you’ve got a crafty little one, a simple craft is a great way to keep them interested in the topic. While their creative juices are flowing, you can also chat about what they’ve learned so far or ask them what else they’re excited about learning!
STEM & STEAM ACTIVITIES
While crafting and writing get their creativity and imagination flowing, we also like to add in an activity that gets them thinking along the lines of science, technology, engineering, or math! These engaging activities or experiments are a great way to keep them learning!
- 3D Wooly Mammoth Wooden Puzzle. Looks like the mammoth is not an option on this link anymore, but this one is still available: Homeford Mammoth Puzzle
- Eugy 3D Puzzle
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you for checking out our at home learning fun article! If you enjoyed this post, please let us know what you think in the comments below and/or follow us on Pinterest
Also, if you haven’t already, check out our other Amazing Ice Age Animals posts or some of our Digging Up Dinosaur Discoveries, Prehistoric Sea Creature Week, as well as our DIY At Home Camps!
Happy Learning!
