Penguins!

We had so much fun learning about penguins this month!

Every morning we read this poem and waddled the
correct direction.

After reading many non-fiction books, we completed this fact chart together.  I made

sure to include facts to choose from that were not true.

We used this fact chart to help us write booklets about penguins.  This is the first time I have ever attempted this much writing in February!  The students were thrilled.  First I gave a few guided drawing lessons on penguins.  For two days we wrote pages for our books.  On the the third day, the students illustrated the front cover.  These turned out so well I had planned on putting them out at Open House.  However, the students were so excited about their books they wanted to take them home to share immediately!

I love writing in Kindergarten because it is such a great opportunity for differentiation.  This is from a high student who used one of our non-fiction books to find some facts that were not on our chart:

 Here is the book from the same student I featured in my post about Kid Writing.  Her confidence keeps building!

We also had some fun, hands on experiences learning about penguins. To show that penguin feathers are oily and repel water, I put vegetable oil in blue (ocean) water.  It was a great visual!

 Next, I made a blubber glove (made with Crisco and Ziploc bags).  The students put their hand in ice water. Then they put on the blubber glove and put it in the ice water again. 

To find out what it felt like to be a daddy penguin with an egg on it's feet, we tried to waddle with a squishy ball between our ankles.