Polar Bears, Seals, a Penguin and Ice.

This is a really simple polar small world activity for toddlers and children. By adding a food extract to the playdough, the activity becomes a sensory experience as well.

I love a small world activity like this because it supports my son’s imagination and speech and language. He was having the most wonderful chat to all the animals as he described to each of them what they would be doing next “Polar Bear you go swimming now” and became very concerned when one of the ears fell off one polar bear!

Set Up

For this polar small world activity I made homemade playdough and flavoured it with lemon extract to make it a sensory experience as well for my son. The polar bears are wine corks which we painted white and then stuck white pom poms for ears with superglue. The ice is styrofoam packaging which came inside a parcel. I then used seals, a penguin and walrus that we had in our toy bag and included blue and clear glass pebbles.

My son was immediately drawn to the polar small world activity. He was particularly intrigued by the home made polar bears and wanted to know what they were made from. My toddler needed no encouragement to start building his own Polar small world and often ‘stole’ pieces from my small world to add to his.

All the resources can be reused and we repeated this small world activity for toddlers and children the very next day.