Activity 6: Polar explorers

Introducing the children to cold climates, helping them explore the characteristics of polar environments.

We’re monitoring the upcoming 2025 National Curriculum updates and will revise our resources when we know more. Learn more

Learning goal

  • To explore and understand life in a cold place, comparing and contrasting it with our own lives.

EYFS outcomes

Development matters

Understanding the world 

  • Recognise some similarities and differences between life in this country and life in other countries.
  • Recognise some environments that are different from the one in which they live.

Characteristics of effective learning 

  • Playing and exploring.
  • Creating and thinking critically.

See Development Matters (non-statutory curriculum guidance).

Before the lesson

Print

Activity

Support and challenge

Adults can use the opportunity to discuss and/or support with: 

  • Having other books about cold or polar environments available for the children (both fiction and non-fiction) to show various places, lived experiences and perspectives.
  • Providing tablets or computers for the children to explore Google Earth further, supervised to ensure safety, allowing them to discover more about the Arctic and Antarctica.
  • Having materials available for the children to create their own polar landscapes or animals using a mix of textures, such as cotton wool for snow and ice and paint for the Northern Lights. 
  • Giving clear, simple instructions for each role-play scenario and helping the children to select appropriate props that they might need in a polar region.
  • Helping the children with the polar checklist by reading each item and discussing it.
  • Asking questions that require more than a yes or no answer, such as “Why do you think it’s important to wear gloves in the snow?”

Key vocabulary

  • blizzard

  • explorer

  • ice

  • polar

  • scientists

  • snow

  • snowstorm

Curriculum opportunities

Created by:
Kapow Primary, 
Geography specialist
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