Penguin Ideas from the Past!

You all. I feel like I have neglected this blog lately and have been horrible about documenting and posting. It is all for a very good reason though!!! I promise :) I will post about it soon!!

I guess our snow unit worked some magic because we got ourselves two snow days last week! PTL! :) It messed up our penguin unit just a bit, so we didn't get to everything we had planned, but the kids really seemed to enjoy learning about penguins!

I thought since I have really slacked on photographing, that I would post ideas from previous years! We did many of these ideas this year. We also used my Penguin Unit!

**ORIGINAL POST ON 2/24/13**

Throughout the week, we read LOTS of nonfiction books about penguins and the kids were soooo into it! Here are my favorite nonfiction books to read to them...

We worked on fact and opinion a lot and made these anchor charts. Then the kids did some fact and opinion writing {along with a quick little craftivity!}.

{Photo circa 2011 :)}



Throughout the week, we focused on the following penguin vocab: rookery, brood pouch, creche, tobogganing, waddling, molting, porpoising, krill, and regurgitate. We had the kids infer what they thought regurgitate means. We gave them this sentence first: "Penguins regurgitate." They had to write what they thought it meant on a notecard. They were quick to tell us that it was hard to infer the meaning without clues :) Then we read their responses. Next, we gave them this sentence: "Penguins regurgitate their food." They were able to make better inferences. Then we found the meaning in one of our books! Needless to say, they were grossed out :) We made these vocabulary penguins to show our learning!

{Photos circa 2011 :)}

We ended our week making our Penguin Fact Books {from my Penguin Packet}. They each had to write at least 5 facts that they learned. 

 

**ORIGINAL POST ON 2/25/12**

 

One actvity Amy and I did add was penguin measurement. We got ALL 47 of our kiddos together and split them into groups of three. Each group was assigned a penguin to make (we made all 17 species)! We gave them the penguin's height, and they had to work with their group to measure and make the penguin! They were SO CUTE! And the kids really worked well together!

And the most popular, the Emperor Penguin :)

 

Then in the afternoone, we taped the penguins around our classrooms, and the kids got to visit each penguin to measure it in inches and centimeters. They did AWESOME! They were all so engaged the entire time!

 

They recorded their data on this record sheet.

When we were all finished, we put all the penguins in order according to their heights.

 

I know I didn't work real hard on this post, but it is better than nothing, right?? :) Have a woderful week!!

Penguins!

This week our 2nd graders had to take the CoGAT test to find out who will qualify for our gifted program next year. I wanted them to have a fun, stress-free week of learning! So I decided to whip out my penguin unit! This is always a favorite unit for the kids (and for me)! They learn SO MUCH and are so enthusiastic.

I did all of the same activities I posted about last year. You can read about them HERE.

Here are just a few of my favorite non-fiction books that I read to the kiddos. These books helped with their fact and opinion writing, as well as their Penguin Fact Books they made at the end of the week.

One actvity Amy and I did add was penguin measurement. We got ALL 47 of our kiddos together and split them into groups of three. Each group was assigned a penguin to make (we made all 17 species)! We gave them the penguin's height, and they had to work with their group to measure and make the penguin! They were SO CUTE! And the kids really worked well together!

And the most popular penguin of all, the Emperor :)

Then in the afternoon, we taped the penguins around our classrooms, and the kids got to visit each penguin to measure it in inches and centimeters. They did AWESOME! They were all so engaged the entire time!

They recorded their data on this record sheet.

When we were all finished, we put all the penguins in order according to their heights.

We will definitely be doing this again next year! I am soooo excited for Dr. Seuss week next week! What are you all doing??