We have begun our P/penguin unit, focusing particularly on the Emperor penguins. Our words to remember are, "I show love to everyone, especially my family" and a key verse we talked about was Romans 12:10: "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves."
We talked about our families and how God wants us to be kind to everyone in our family. He wants us to always love them, even though sometimes it may be very hard. An example of this is the Emperor penguin father. After the mother lays the egg, the father puts the egg on his feet to keep it warm with his body. For two months, the father stands on the ice and snow in Antarctica, with the egg on his feet, and he doesn't eat a single thing that entire time. We all decided that we wouldn't do very well as an Emperor penguin!
Here are some penguin-themed activities that we did today:
"The Emperor's Egg" by Martin Jenkins is a great children's book that describes the parental behavior of Emperor penguins. It focuses on how the male keeps the egg warm until it hatches, and it describes how the parents care for the chick after it is born.
After reading about Emperor penguins and how the male penguins are wonderful fathers, taking care of the egg in the blistering cold, the kids made a card for the wonderful father in their lives. On the front, they drew pictures of an Emperor penguin father with the egg on its feet. We wrote "A Wonderful Father"
and the inside says "That is what you are!"
Madison also drew a picture of her and Noah on the inside of the card. Nate sure loved the cards!
Penguin coloring pages
A penguin number game. I said a number on the page and Madison had to find the number and put a little colored chip on it.
(www.makinglearningfun.com)
Letter P Word Search and Handwriting Tracing Page
(http://www.first-school.ws/t/word-search/alphabet/p.htm)I have also began teaching the basics of monetary values. Today we learned about the penny and what it is worth.
We talked about where penguins live, in Antarctica. We looked up Antarctica in our Children's World Atlas, found where it was located on the globe, then labeled it on our world map picture.
We also read a book called "Icebergs" by Jenny Wood that described many iceberg facts, stories, and activities.
I demonstrated with ice cubes how a large portion of an iceberg is actually unseen, under the water. We talked about how icebergs can be very dangerous to ships because so much of them can't be seen.
Our penguin treats, made from raiding the Halloween candy! Snicker bars (with vanilla cake frosting on them) for the bodies, a couple different types of chocolate Tootsie Rolls for the wings and the heads, orange Tootsie Rolls for the feet and beaks, and Smarties for the eggs. The kids really enjoyed these for dessert after lunch!
More on penguins tomorrow!
We made penguin badges with our words to remember: "I show love to everyone, especially my family."
For a fun art project, we made balloon penguins that stand up on cardboard feet.
A grid work page, which created a picture of a penguin
"The Life Cycle of an Emperor Penguin" by Bobbie Kalman
"Nanu, Penguin Chick" by Theresa Radcliffe
And finally, we watched the movie "March of the Penguins" as a family this evening. It was a great ending to our unit on penguins.
