Make a mural of the Arctic.  All you need is a large sheet of mural paper about 3 feet by 6 feet and paints or crayons.  Click on the small pictures to download the full sized artwork, or click on the link below each picture for the PDF version.  Then color, cut out the images and paste to the mural.  Print as many copies as you wish.
     After your mural paper is tacked up, have your class paint a pond for the water plants and grasslands for the background.  Use teamwork to make your classroom into the African bush.  Download sections of African plants and animals to color, then mix and match.   If you  have a copier with options, reducing, enlarging, and mirroring will give you lots of ways to vary the images.  There are several sizes of animals and plants here to chose from too!

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 Hints:  To make the perspective of your mural put the smallest animals in front.

     An igloo is made of snow blocks sawed out of the snow.  They are not placed layer upon layer, but in a continuous circular line like a snail.  Much of the igloo is below the snow porch or entrance which can be blocked off with an animal hide.  The Igloo is much bigger than it appears from the outside.

     To color your polar bear shade with light gray around the edges of his shape so he appears to be rounded.  Polar bears have a yellowish tint against the white snow so you can use a very pale yellow on his body.

     The largest male polar bear was measured at eleven feet.  Considered a marine mammal the polar bear is at home in frigid Arctic ocean, kept warm by a layer of fat called blubber.  Polar bears swim long distances, but can be found hunting for seals along the floe edge where the frozen se ice meet the open ocean.
     You can see evidence of the polar bear's black skin around its eyes, nose, athe pades of its fee and its tongue..

Papa Bear
Click here for a sheet of small size
Click here for reversed artwork
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     Polar bear's fur is not white, but clear.  Each hair is hollow and funnels the sun's warmth into its black skin.  Black absorbs light well.  Of course, about the Arctic circle where polar bears live, the sun doesn't appear about the horizon in winter.

     Mama bear's parka dips down in the front and back, making it recognizable as a woman's garment.  Her large hood, called an amauti can be used like a backpack.  Her boots are fancy, and would be worn at ceremonial dances and festivals.  The are called Kamiit.

     Baby polar bears are the size of a guinea pig when they are born in the snow den the mother bear has made.  Sometimes she has twins.  In nature, the father bear is not involved in bringing up the cubs.

     The flat ice pieces are called pans.  They are part of the sea ice which is frozen ocean water.  It is salty.  The top is white, below is pale blue green.  The surrounding ocean is deep blue green.

     The circular hole in the sea ice is a seal's breathing hole.  You could place a seal on the ice near it.  Sometimes a polar bear crouches beside the breathing hoe waiting for the seal to appear.  The seal is a favorite food of the polar bear.

     The walrus, a male or bull color and brown-gray.  This is a very large mammal, it can be twelve feet long.  Its tusks can grow to three feet.  Its hair is sparse, although the male has long thick whiskers.  It eats clams which it digs up with its tusks, but it also eats sea birds and seals.  Walrus are dangerous and will attack boats.

     The ringed seal is one of the smaller seals, about 5'3" long.  They carve deep breathing holes in the ice with their teeth.  The pelage or coat of this seal is dark gray with a pale underside.  The light rings are scattered throughout the dark area.

    The female hooded seal is the only seal with the distinctive blotched coat or pelage.  The female is grown at 7'10".  Her pup is nursed for only four days, and then it is on it's own, the shortest period for any mammal.  The female is creamy white with black blotches.

     The harp seal male and female have black heads and a black saddle shaped area on their backs.  The harp seal is smaller than the hooded seal.  The seal grows to be six feet three inches and the female five feet eleven inches.
     Newborns are pure white and stay with their mothers for two weeks.
    Use your pencil to shade the black and white seals.  Holding you pencil on its side go all around the outline of the seals shape, about 1/4 of an inch.  Go around a second time to about one eight of an inch.  Your seal should take on a rounded shape.

     When a seal or walrus comes up onto the ice it is said to be hauled out.  Both male and females have tusks.

     The male narwhal is 14' to 15' long.  The male has a long spiral tusk, the female does not.  The narwhal's enemies beside man are killer whales and polar bears.  It eats fish and shrimp but does not spear fish with its tusk.
      Use shading to color the white male narwhal and mix pale yellow and beige to color the ivory tusk.

     A Woman's Knife called a Ulu.

     A teakettle for brewing Labrador tea.

     A frozen codfish.