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Penguin Activities in Kindergarten

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Hi, friends!  Let’s be honest…penguin week (well, it’s actually two weeks) are my most favorite weeks of the whole year!  There is just so much to do regarding math, science, social studies and literacy!  It’s one of those topics that easily extends itself across the curriculum!

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

 

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We kicked off our penguin unit with a fun poem all about penguins!  This little ditty is to the tune “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!
Of course, we had to practice waddling like a daddy penguin!  We were so careful not to drop our egg on the floor.  We even timed how long it took us to waddle back to our seats.  Boy, waddling sure is hard work!

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!
Speaking of carrying an egg on top of your feet, we also learned all about the life cycle of a penguin…including a few important vocabulary words such as incubate, brood pouch, regurgitate (which we thought was disgusting!) and fledgling.

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

This life cycle anchor chart really helped us create a visual representation of the penguin life cycle.

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!
One of my favorite books to use during our penguin unit is The Emperor’s Egg by Martin Jenkins.  It tells all about the life cycle of a penguin.  We actually created the above anchor chart as we read the book.  Plus, the illustrations are gorgeous, and it fit in perfectly with our Penguin Life Cycle craftivity!
This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

We also enjoyed reading these nonfiction penguin readers from Crayons and Cuties in Kindergarten!  My kiddos begged to read a new one each day!  They just couldn’t get enough!

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

I especially loved that they were written with kid friendly words that helped reinforce many of the sight words we were learning.

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

The kiddos even wanted to read them during our Daily 5 routine!  One student would read a page, while the other student would check for understanding.  We simply asked “who is this page about” and “what is this page about.”

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

Now, no penguin unit would be complete without some penguin crafts!  We used these Penguin Flap Books as a culminating activity to help solidify our learning.  First, we made the penguin craft.

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

Then, we used the penguin tree map to review all we had learned.

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

Each kiddo used their completed tree map to help them finish the inside of our Penguin Flap Books.  These were a huge hit with not only the students, but also other teachers, school visitors and parents!  Gah!  Their illustrations are just the cutest!

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

 

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

 

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

We chose to use the can, are, have templates, but this set also includes templates for penguin facts, penguin diagram, penguins vs. birds, penguin life cycle, penguin predators, penguin diet and penguin habitat.

This is the perfect culminating penguin activity to your penguin unit! Simply use the graphic organizers throughout your penguin unit to gather all of the information you are learning about these aquatic birds! Then, choose from one of three flap book templates to create your "All About Penguins" flap book! Plus, review basic shapes as you are making the penguin flap books!

And how about this cute penguin craft our art teacher completed with the kids?!  They looked adorable hanging in the hallway!

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

We even integrated our penguin learning into our math instruction.  Did you all know that an Emperor Penguin can grow to four feet tall?!  Of course, we had to measure ourselves by laying next to our four foot Emperor!  Then, we used some penguin cards to measure the height of the Emperor in nonstandard units.

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

Once we figured out his height, we worked with a partner to measure our nonstandard height.  Some of us were shorter than an Emperor, some taller, and a few of us were the exact same size!

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

Our most favorite penguin activity was the blubber experiment!  Simply place two large Ziploc bags inside each other.  Fill the inside between the two bags with Crisco, roll the top down and secure with Duct Tape.  My kiddos happily called this the “blubber bag.”

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

We followed the scientific method while conducting our little experiment.  Therefore, we made a hypothesis and tested the ice water without the “blubber bag.”  We described the water.  It was freezing!

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

Then, we placed the “blubber bag” inside the water and inserted our hand into the “blubber bag.”

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

We learned that the blubber helped insulate our hand and keep it warm, much like the blubber helps keep a penguin’s body warm!  Grab the FREE recording sheet below!

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

At the listening station, we listened to If You Were a Penguin by Wendell and Florence Minor.  It tells all about the things penguins can do, such as “fly underwater,” “sing a duet,” “live on land but get really wet,” “wear a tuxedo,” “live underground or on top of the ice,” and our most favorite, “toboggan.”  After listening to the story, we completed a simple response sheet to check for understanding.

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

Some of us made text-to-self connections!

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

Grab the response sheet below!

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!
I hope you were able to find some fun penguin ideas to use in your classroom!

This post has so many integrated penguin activities, covering each content area, as well as penguin crafts to display the students’ learning! Grab the FREE penguin blubber experiment printable to use with your Kindergarten and primary students!

If you’re looking for more penguin fun, head on over to my “Penguins” board on Pinterest!

Follow One Sharp Bunch’s board Penguins on Pinterest.

Don’t forget to waddle on over to these other blogs for more penguin activities and freebies!

An InLinkz Link-up

 

 

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    Filed Under: Craftivities, Freebies, Integrated Activities, Math, Reading, Science, Winter, Writing Tagged With: freebie, literacy, math, penguin activities, poetry binders, science, winter, winter activities

    Comments

    1. Jennifer Drake says

      January 14, 2016 at 11:38 am

      Great ideas Ashley! I love the response sheet and will be adding that to my plans for penguin week(s)! I am so glad your kiddos loved the readers and it warms my teacher heart to read that they wanted to read them repeatedly!
      Jenn
      Crayons & Cuties In Kindergarten

      Reply
    2. Elyse Rycroft says

      January 14, 2016 at 6:23 pm

      Love your ideas, Ashley! Great idea to get children waddling like a penguin!
      Elyse 🙂

      Reply
    3. Lori Raines says

      January 14, 2016 at 10:05 pm

      We make penguins out of paper of foam core and use wiggly eyes. We also have a poster of an emperor penguin and the children come up to it to see if they are taller or shorter than the penguin.

      Reply
    4. Ellen Coan says

      January 14, 2016 at 10:19 pm

      Great ideas! One of my favorite books is "Penguin Chick" by Betty Tatham.

      Reply
    5. Mary Love Strange says

      January 17, 2016 at 12:24 am

      I like to read The Emperor's Egg when teaching about penguins. Thanks for sharing some more great ideas!

      Reply
    6. Samantha Rigby says

      January 17, 2016 at 7:13 pm

      My favorite penguin book is "Tacky the Penguin". My students are always laughing when I read a Tacky book and beg for more. 🙂

      Reply
    7. Ms. Hoag says

      January 17, 2016 at 10:17 pm

      I love Tacky the Penguin!

      Reply
    8. Mrs. S says

      January 18, 2016 at 1:34 am

      This is my first year teaching 1st grade so I am building my unit for this grade. We did it at 6th grade last year. 🙂 I love the Tacky series.

      Reply
    9. Cindyp94 says

      January 18, 2016 at 4:01 am

      I love love love penguins. I plan on reading both fiction and nonfiction books to my firsties.

      Reply
    10. Kelsey Bryant says

      January 18, 2016 at 5:49 am

      I'm excited to try out the blubber experiment this year. Thanks for the freebie! 🙂

      Reply

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    I'm Ashley, a Kindergarten teacher who loves live music, Mt. Dew (no coffee for me), and the color yellow. I believe learning should be developmentally appropriate, engaging, rigorous, but most importantly FUN... so welcome to my blog where content,
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