“To appreciate the beauty of a snowflake it is necessary to stand out in the cold.”
-Aristotle
Welcome to our ice age homeschool unit! During this unit, we cover prehistoric mammals and early humans! In our homeschool this year, I opted to take my kids through time in a somewhat chronological order. If you have been following us, first we covered space in our space unit, then dinosaurs. This week is ice age, which I first started by explaining that the Earth went through many ice ages, over thousands and thousands of years. This is one of my kids favorite units because, of course, we watch a bunch of the Ice Age movies! At the bottom you can view a sample schedule of how our week went.
Books
When I went to the library this week to pick up the books for our unit, these were my tops picks of books to pick out. When the girls were in early elementary, we read the Magic Tree House chapter books during the week and used the fact tracker for reference. The 5000 year old ice mummy book, my 3rd grader read to herself. The others I read to the kids throughout the week. If there is a read aloud available on YouTube, I have included the links for those as well, in case you can’t locate the book at the library:
- “Magic Tree House: Sunset of the Sabertooth” by Mary Pope Osborne
- “Magic Tree House Face Tracker: Sabertooth and the Ice Age” – by Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pop Boyce
- “Eye Witness: Early Humans”
- “Dinosaurs to Dodos: An Encyclopedia of Extinct Animals” – by Don Lessem
- “Ice Mummy” by Cathy East Dubowski
- “A Woolly Mammoths Journey” by Debbie S. Miller
- “How to Wash a Woolly Mammoth” by Michelle Robinson
- “Ice Age Sabertooth” by Barbara Hehner
Videos
In addition to the books about the ice age, in my homeschool units I like to have the kids watch at least one documentary about the time period we are learning about. We watched one about early humans and one about prehistoric animals. Of course, the “Ice Age” movies were just for fun!
- Ice Age Movies- The Original, The Meltdown, Continental Drift, Collision Course
- Early Humans National Geographic
- 5 Giant Ice Age Animals
Ice Age Homeschool Unit Art Projects
We had a few fun projects up our sleeve during our ice age homeschool unit. The first was to make some cave paintings of animals. It was pretty easy to prepare. I took some brown paper bags from the grocery store, and cut them into large rectangles. Then, I crumpled up the paper and soaked in in water for about two minutes. I laid these flat to dry… and by the next morning, the kids were ready to made cave art! I gave them some paint and they designed a bunch of cave figures on their paper.
We also played a fun game that went along with this project. Using a dray erase whiteboard (paper would work just fine as well), the girls had to come up with a sentence, and try to write it using “cave drawing symbols.” Then, everyone else tried to guess what they were writing! We had a really fun time with this one.
The favorite project of the week though, had to be our “ivory” carvings. Since in the ice age, many people carved objects out of ivory mammoth bones, we carved some objects as well!
Instead of bones, we used soap bars! The girls had to get a little creative with tools to use: they tried butter knives, vegetables peelers, toothpicks, and fire pokers. The vegetable peeler worked really well, as well as the toothpicks. We carved various bowls and a couple of ice age rabbits.
Ice Age Homeschool Unit Science Project
While studying the Ice Age, of course it was important to squeeze in an experiment with ice. We created some frozen “eggs” that we let sit overnight in the freezer. To make the eggs, you take a balloon (a regular one, not a water balloon), and hold it open. You can put anything inside of it. We used plastic animals, but any object would work. Then, fill the balloon with water, tie it off, set it in a baking dish, and leave it in the freezer overnight. We made three eggs. You could make as many as you’d like.
The next day, take your eggs out of the freezer and bring outside. We used salt to dissolve the ice around our creatures, as if we were defrosting them from the ice age! The salt and ice reaction is a slow one, so be prepared to maybe have another activity to do while you watch and wait.
Glaciers & The Great Lakes
We have completed this unit several years in a row, and as my kids got to the upper elementary years, I added a short lesson on glaciers and how the Great Lakes formed, since the formation of the lakes had to do with the last ice age. By the time they reached 4th and 5th grade, they had outgrown some of the younger age experiments. You can follow this link to see how to do a simple moving glacier experiment. All you need for this project is some sand, dirt, and a bowl for ice. This is a sit and wait experiment, so definitely more appropriate for kids who are over the age of 8.
I also put together a worksheet and mini unit on the geography of the lakes and how they were formed during the last Ice Age and beyond. We do not live near these amazing lakes, so it was a learning experience for all!
Geography
Towards the end of this unit, we started to touch on some geography. During our dinosaurs unit, we had talked about how all the continents used to be squished together into Pangaea. This week we worked on memorizing the continents (see the 7 continents song below). The girls also watched the other videos about how the continents were formed and what might happen with plate tectonics in the future.
Writing
For this weeks writing project, my 3rd and 1st graders did a comparison of a prehistoric animal and a modern day animal! First, we used a venn diagram from the magic tree house in order to sort different animal characteristics. We went through the Magic Tree House fact tracker in order to find information on the animals. You could also use the internet as well if you aren’t able to locate this particular book! Then we wrote a paragraph from there. I also have a set of 3 writing prompts available to purchase on teachers pay teachers for the Ice Age (this is for second and third grade – first grade here)
Yearlong Timeline
Every Thursday, we work on a timeline. This is a good spot for me to review topics we have already covered, as well as give my 3rd grader a perspective into when all these topics are happening. So as we worked on our timeline this week, I review last week’s lesson on dinosaurs, and also checked to see if she could remember the planets from our space unit! We added the “Cenozoic Era” to our timeline this week, and we noted an important time, that the last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago!
Suggested Schedule
- Monday: Start reading Magic Tree House books (2 chapters or so a day)
- Tuesday: learn all about prehistoric animals through books and videos. Write a comparison between a prehistoric animal and one in today’s time.
- Wednesday: Watch videos about prehistoric man, go through eye witness book, do cave painting and cave sentence game
- Thursday: 7 continents and plate tectonics videos, yearlong timeline, Put ice eggs in the freezer.
- Friday: Soap Carvings, Defrost Ice Eggs, Watch Ice Age movies!
Thanks for joining us on our prehistoric ice age homeschool unit! Don’t miss our last unit on Dinosaurs. Up next, we move into ancient history with our study on Egypt!