Penguins!

Well, like many others out there in bloggy land, last week we had "Penguin" week.  Well, "Tacky Penguin" week to be exact!  We spent each day reading a Tacky book and working with a story map for each, and then spent time each day researching penguins with nonfiction books that I had either purchased or got from our library!  One day, I got the laptop cart and the kids researched a specific penguin for their packet off the web.  I found a great site:  www.penguinworld.com that had a great list of penguin types.

**I want to add---the books we used for researching were NOT at their levels.  They worked together to find information by using the index and other nonfiction text features.  Also, because of how we group and switch our kids, these activities were only done in my reading group, which I have for 2 1/2 hours a day.  There are SO many other great activities out there that I would have loved to do, but it didn't work out for us.  I did, however, do a few penguin things in math---make sure to follow me and check out that later this week!  (they will be easy, cute freebies!)**

We ended our week with a "Tacky Day!"  The kids dressed tacky  :)  We did a few papers for our "Tacky Pack" (which also included our story maps from each book) and we drew true to life emperor penguins and little penguins.  (Which they also labeled---to get in that "nonfiction text features!")

Here are some pics of our fun week!

{Researching with a partner}

 {Researching with a partner} 

 {Example of one of their pages/work.}

 {Researching a specific penguin on www.penguinworld.com}

 {Researching a specific penguin on www.penguinworld.com}

 {Measuring out an Emperor Penguin using unifix cubes.  We estimated it was about 56 cubes since they aren't quite an inch}

 {One of the finished birds--labeled an all---bad pic though}

 {We expanded the class into the hallway}

 {Our Little Penguin example.  This was done on just a 18X12 construction paper}

 

 {Class pic of our tackiness.  Too bad you can't see my tacky tights!}

We used the papers from my packet:

Up next:  Snowmen at Night series!

I'll leave you with this little freebie for getting this far---not related to penguins, but will fit great with winter in general!!!!  Remember Rudolph's Reindeer Game?  Read about the games {here} and {here}.  This month I made carrot noses!  Click here to grab yourself a copy to use in your class.  This time I do not have a black and white version.  Click on the picture to grab yourself the freebie!  (make sure to stop back this week to see pictures added of this adorable game!!)