Penguins Galore

We recently finished up a study on penguins with my kinders and 1st graders.  Students had to create a pinch-pot penguin and painted it.  I found the idea on Patty's site; www.Deep Space Sparkle.com- thanks Patty!  They turned out super cute and I displayed them in our winter wonderland display case.

Other activities included drawing penguins, writing about penguins facts and using torn paper to create a winter scene.  We used black construction paper and tore light blue paper to create the background, then tore white paper to create the foreground.  We discussed how objects appear smaller in the background so students got to practice this idea by cutting out igloos of various sizes and placing them on the paper.  It was a fun, quick and easy way to teach about space.

The students also created icebergs using tagboard and mirror paper to give them something to take their penguins home it.  I will have to post a picture of that if I can find one- they were so cute!  And the kids loved making them.  One first grade teacher saw the completed iceberg with penguin and she said, "oooh that's what they've been making!  The kids keep cutting and folding paper in my room to make those and I didn't know where they learned that!"  Don't you just love moments like that?!  It's so great when kids take an idea they learned and practice with it at home or in their classrooms!  :)

Here's the pictures of the icebergs!  We took a square piece of tagboard, folded it in half twice (corner to corner), unfolded and cut along one fold to the center of the square.  Then the kids overlapped the triangles that were created when they cut along the fold and glued them together.  They added a triangle piece of mirror paper to the bottom to look like ice and glued on penguins and iceberg pictures for the background.