Penguin Mini Unit

Good Morning! It is 50 degrees this morning in FL! Which is a little bit warmer than it has been the past couple of days! So, it was very appropriate that we did a week-long study on penguins in 1st grade this week!
The Language Arts program I teach has science and social studies themes tied in to each unit, so normally I just follow what is given and expand upon that.  This past unit was based on maps and globes.  It was exciting at first! We did Google Earth and found our school, a couple of the students' houses, and even my parent's house up in NH!  We learned all the vocabulary.  We did a "Me on the Map" book that allowed the students to map their country, state, city/town, street, house, and room.  It was really fun for 2 weeks, but this past week was supposed to be a 3rd week on maps and globes.  I just needed to change it up.  I felt we had exhausted the theme.  So, instead I tied our mapping and globes into PENGUINS!  I used the globe for the starting point: penguins live in the southern hemisphere.  Emporer penguins live in Antarctica!
I'm so glad I chose to move in that direction! It was a hit with the kids and I even learned things from reading to the children.  I also found that many other first grade classrooms are learning about penguins too! There were a lot of resources I chose from to bring to my own classroom.  One of my favorites was watching the San Diego Sea World webcam that is in the penguin habitat!  We heard the penguins making all kinds of noises and there was one that would not leave from in front of the camera.  We decided that he was not camera-shy!
One of the facts we learned from reading non-fiction books about penguins, is that an Emporer Penguin can grow up to 48 inches tall!  I saw another teacher actually made an Emporer Penguin from paper and measured her students next to it.  We really need to do more measuring in my classroom, so I did it too! I took their picture and made a recording sheet for each student to fill in. Check out the pictures below!

Another activity that I did with the first graders was a guided drawing.  We have done them in the past.  I don't tell them what we are drawing to start.  I make a line on my drawing and they copy it.  Towards the end they always figure out what we are drawing and get so excited.  Then, they are allowed to color and personalize their picture a little bit.  These are a couple penguins from that activity. Even though they were both copying my directions, they look completely different!

We did other penguin work throughout the week and then culminated with a little multiple-choice assessment I created and we ate PENGUIN PIE!  I got the idea from What the Teacher Wants.  I bought blue bunny ice cream bars for the students and told them they were Penguin Pie.  They loved estimating how many bites it would take to eat their pie.  They thought of some creative things to fill in the similes on the worksheet.  It was a great theme for a chilly week!

 

Oh, and of course we read the Tacky books!! I love Tacky! He is a funny penguin for sure!