Students at Plains Elementary took an adventure through the north and south poles last week. The kindergarten through fourth grades traveled pole to pole on Thursday, learning about everything from animals to snowflakes.

Fourth-grade teacher Jill Rice came up with the idea for the interactive lesson on the North Pole and South Pole. The other teachers quickly jumped on board with the idea. They spent about a month preparing for the polar activities, and hours decorating hallways and classrooms to resemble the poles. As kids walked through the halls, they went under a sea of turtles and fish swimming the ocean overhead, then through a winter wonderland before ending up at Dani Walker's kindergarten classroom, which was decorated like Santa's house.

The different grade levels completed different activities in each classroom. Kindergartners learned about how snowflakes are formed before creating their own out of paper in Meg Feist's room. In Rice's classroom, second-graders had the opportunity to learn how animals in the South Pole are camouflaged from predators with their light or dark colored fur. The students also had an activity in which they put one hand in cold Antarctic water (a pan of ice water) and another in penguin blubber (a layer of shortening sandwiched in plastic bags and then put in a pan of water) to show how it insulates penguins to keep them warm.

First-grade teachers Wendy Tulloch and Denise Montgomery were stationed at the North Pole, teaching about animals. Students inspected animal pelts and antlers to see if they could guess which animal they belonged to, and then painted the Northern Lights inside animal tracks on paper.

Montgomery said she was using the animal activities as a springboard for some classroom lessons starting after the holiday break.

In the kindergarten classrooms, students wrote letters to Santa and then went to Santa's workshop to crack a code and learn a secret message. Kids asked Santa for things like roller blades, skateboards and art supplies in their letters.

Annie Wooden

TAKING THE PLUNGE - Second-grader Kiara Brown (left center) sticks her hands in Antarctice ice water and penguin blubber (shortening in plastic bags) under the direction of teacher Jill Rice to learn how penguins stay warm at the North Pole.

Thursday also was a dress-up day at the school. Students could dress up as their favorite character or animal from either the North Pole or South Pole. There were plenty of Santas, reindeer and even a grinch. Second grader Kiara Brown was dressed as a penguin. After doing the ice water activity in Rice's classroom, Brown said she would definitely want to be a penguin.

The fun proceeded into recess, where Santa was waiting for the kids on the playground with candy canes. Both students and teachers enjoyed the polar lessons and activities.