Snowy Arctic Habitats

This fun habitat making activity is a great combination of sensory play and loose parts exploration.

This post contains affiliate links. We were kindly gifted the Safari Ltd. Arctic Toob creature used in this blog. Safari Ltd. products are automatically linked with a 20% discount code.

We recently had lots of fun enjoying an invitation to build mini habitats. I thought it would be neat to take this activity a step further and actually make our own sensory snow base for an arctic habitat. This activity was perfect for my toddler as it combined her love of all things sensory and small world play.

What you need:

- activity tray (this food tray from Dollar Tree was perfect)
- bowl
- squirt bottle with some cold water in it
- baking soda
- spoon and scooper
- mini plastic mason jar with lid (this one is 4oz. and from Michaels)
- small arctic animal (ours is a polar bear from the Safari Ltd. Arctic Toob collection)
- selection of loose parts such as logs, glass pebbles, and small rocks all from Dollar Tree

How it works:

As soon as my 2 year old saw the set up she was straight to work exploring the baking soda in the bowl. She moved her finger through the powder to make marks. She even made some snowy handprints.

We spoke about the texture and appearance of the baking soda. We compared it to snow and agreed that snow is usually a bit thicker and colder so we got to work adding a few squirts of water into the bowl.

The great thing with this recipe for fake snow is that it is very forgiving. If your toddler adds too much water, just put in some more baking soda. They can keep experimenting until they get a consistency they like. Baby sis enjoyed mixing the water in with the baking soda and noticed that the snow started to get a bit thicker and formed little snow balls.

I encouraged baby sis to also explore the snow with her hands. She loved the fact that when she grabbed some in her hand it formed a big snow ball. Then when she poked it or squished it, the snow crumbled back into more of a powdery substance. Great for little hands to explore!

She spent quite a long time just playing with the snow in the bowl. She built mountains and noted that the snow felt much colder now. She couldn't wait to let her polar bear explore the snow too.

It was time to build her polar bear a nice arctic habitat. She used her fine motor skills to transfer some of the snow into the plastic mason jar.

Once she had enough snow in the jar, she started to explore the loose parts. She chose fun things for the polar bear to live and play with. She decided that the bear would like to climb the log and the blue glass pebble was some water for the bear to drink.

She made sure the bear had everything he needed for his habitat before lovingly placing him in the jar as well.

The great thing about these mason jars are that they are plastic and the lids are easy to secure. She really enjoyed that she could do all the stages of this activity by herself.

She was very proud of the habitat she had created for her little polar bear. She treats it like her pet now! It was great to see her being so hands on with different materials, as well as learning more about habitats and why they are important to animals.